Icelolly.com Pulse: Green list optimism shifts focus back to summer 2021

Icelolly.com Pulse: Green list optimism shifts focus back to summer 2021

Holiday comparison site tracks immediate impact of UK’s green list announcement

Holidaymakers’ focus switched back to this summer according the latest weekly Pulse tracker from icelolly.com.

The report covers the period June 21-27 and last week’s announcement by the UK government of an extension of the green list of countries.

This saw the prospect of quarantine-free travel to the Balearics, Malta and Madeira increased for this year’s peak travel period.

The announcement had an immediate impact, reversing recent rising interest in 2022 summer travel in relation to this summer period.

Iceloly.com said there was a significant search share increase for July 2021 meaning since the green list announcement close to 40% of searches were for departures in that month.

Between June 24 and 27, approximately two-thirds of all searches were for July or August 2021 travel.

Share by season stood at 74.3% for summer 2021, up 14% week-on-week, winter 2021 5.5%, up 2.6%, while summer 2022 was 18.7%, down 11.2%.

Chris Webber, head of travel deals at icelolly.com, said: “The addition of the Balearic Islands, Malta and Madeira to the green list saw all destinations shoot up in popularity in both searches and bookings, and, overall, both searches and bookings doubled versus the previous week.

“July 2021 travel regained popularity in search, too, and accounted for close to 40% of all searches following the green list update.

“Users of our UK search are very much focused on the early part of the school summer holidays, with the coastal destinations of Cornwall and Devon remaining the most popular for summer travel.”

The Peak District had the largest week-on-week share of search growth. Dorset and the Cotswolds both had search share drops of around 25%.

For the domestic sector the 31-90 days window increased its dominance, tying in with the school summer holidays and accounting for around two-thirds of all searches.

Within that window, there was a peak for the week of 22nd-28th July. In the 15-30 days window, which also increased share, there was a peak for travel the week of Jul 17-23.