Booking.com tops Greenlight hotels search table

More than two million Google searches were made for hotel-related keywords in January, according to latest figures.

More than two million Google searches were made for hotel-related keywords in January, according to latest figures.

The search term ‘hotels’ was queried more than 301,000 times, accounting for 15% of all searches made for the sector.

Generic hotel keywords were queried more than 765,000 times, accounting for 38% of all searches. Searches for hotels in domestic destinations were also popular, accounting for 36% of all made.

Booking.com featured at the top of Greenlight’s integrated paid and natural search league table, thanks to attaining a strong share of visibility in the paid media space.

Late Rooms was the most visible website in the natural search listings, achieving a 69% share of voice, specialist research company Greenlight found

Lastminute.com attained a 64% share of voice through ranking at position one for 97 keywords, including ‘Amsterdam cheap hotels’.

Travelsupermarket saw its share of visibility increase by 5% and it rose the Greenlight natural search league table from fifth to fourth place.

Booking.com was the most visible advertiser, achieving a 92% share of voice in the paid media space through bidding on 117 keywords, at an average ad position of two.

Trivago attained a 72% share of visibility through bidding on 95 keywords, at an average ad position of four.

Of the top 10 advertisers, Hotel Direct bid on the least number of keywords (21), however it achieved a 20% share of visibility.

Expedia was the most visible brand in an analysis of social media, achieving a Klout score of 63. Lastminute.com had more than 18,500 people following it on its Twitter account while Hotels.com had more than one million views on its YouTube account.

Research into search trends by Google established that most travel-related queries are performed on Tuesdays, with slightly fewer on other weekdays. The fewest travel-related searches are made over the weekend, with Saturday seeing the least number of queries.

Of the advertisers analysed by Greenlight, Travel Republic was the closest to recognising consumer search behaviour.

“Advertisers appeared to overestimate consumer search behaviour over the weekend period,” the report said.