January and February recorded the lowest monthly volumes for ‘holiday’-related searches on Google for the entire 12 month period from March 2013, according to Greenlight’s latest report.
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Holidays Google searches hit 12-month low in January and February
January and February recorded the lowest monthly volumes for ‘holiday’-related searches on Google for the entire 12 month period from March 2013, according to Greenlight’s latest report.
Figures from the search specialist found there were 2.8 million searches for holidays keywords in the UK in February, a 12-month low only beaten by January which saw around two million.
The sector report found Travelsupermarket was the most visible brand in natural search, Travel Republic topped the paid search chart and Thomas Cook ranked highest in the integrated table.
An analysis of 4,794 relevant keywords found ‘cheap holidays’ was queried 246,000 times, or 9% of the total, while generic terms dominated representing 47% of all searches.
Thomson came out as the most visible brand for generic terms with a 58% share of voice ahead of rival Thomas Cook on 55%.
The Greenlight report also looked at visibility for domestic, short-haul and long-haul terms, with Hoseasons coming out top for the former and Travelsupermarket for the other two.
Travel Republic’s leading position for paid search came on the back of bidding on 2,436 keywords as an average position of five.
While Thomas Cook was a big advertiser in February, its big vertically-integrated rival Tui Travel was far less active with its brands First Choice and Thomson in 11th and 21st places respectively.
The top ten advertisers included a mixture of OTAs and deals publishers including On The Beach, Holiday Discount Centre, Sunmaster, Holiday Hypermarket, Icelolly and Holiday Gems.
Among generic searches, Lowcost Holidays achieved the most visible ad creative with 23% share of voice advertising its ‘ultra-low deposits from £25pp”.
For domestic terms a host of UK operators were beaten to top spot by Spanish accommodation website Trivago with a 36% share of voice and the most visible ad creative offering 78% off weekend breaks.
Overall all the leading websites were found to have poor integrated search visibility but Thomas Cook’s relatively strong performance in each saw it top the table ahead of Lowcost Holidays.
Greenlight’s analysis of social media presence placed British Airways about Thomas Cook, Thomson and Lastminute.com.
BA’s market leading number of Twitter and Google+ followers as well as YouTube views and a Klout score of 89.
