Icelolly Pulse: It’s ‘green for go’ for Portugal after green list announcement

Weekly tracker sees the Algarve leap to the number one searched destination on holiday comparison site

The impact for a destination being on the UK’s ‘green list’ of countries open to travel was highlighted in icelolly.com’s weekly Pulse report.

Portugal’s popular Algarve leapt to take the top spot in the holiday comparison site’s most-searched-for chart demoting long-time leader Tenerife to a lowly second.

The Algarve’s spike was most pronounced in the three days after Friday’s announcement when the destination accounted for over a third of all searches on the website.

Chris Webber, head of travel deals at icelolly.com, said: “Friday’s green list announcement prompted a big spike in attention for Portugal.

“Algarve’s share of search versus last week climbed by 300% to make it the most-searched destination, and actual volume of searches for the Algarve increased by more than 500%.

“There were similar lifts for Madeira too, along with a sharp rise in popularity for travel in May and June 2021 – people are eager to get away soon this summer, now they have a holiday hotspot to go to.

“In UK search, people are still looking for those favoured beach destinations of Cornwall and Devon, with dates in July a big focus for searches, followed by October.”

The most popular departure months were heavily influenced by Friday’s announcement with search share for May 2021 travel up 78% versus last week, while June 2021 search share grew by 59%.

Since Friday’s announcement, all other travel months saw share decrease. Search share by season stood at summer 2021, 70.2% (+5.3%), winter 2021, 7.6% (-2.3%), and summer 2022, 19.9% (-3.5%).