Coronavirus: Icelolly.com’s Pulse starts to race as holidaymakers anticipate green light to travel

Holiday comparison site reveals search volumes and booking levels have both doubled

Icelolly.com expects bargain hunters to rush into the market after they are given the green light to book their 2020 holiday.

With the UK government expected to announce its long-awaited lifting of its international travel ban to countries with low COVID-19 rates, the holiday search site has already seen activity spiking.

August and July 2020 are now firmly established as the most popular months for users searching for a holiday, followed by September and October this year.

July saw the biggest rise of share of search volume week on week, up 64% as consumer anticipation that the summer getaway is back on increased.

Just over two thirds of searches in the week to June 28 were for 2020 with July, August and September accounting for 54% of all searches.

Popular Spanish and Greek resorts dominate the top ten booked destinations with just the Algarve making the top 10 outside of those two countries.

Majorca saw the biggest week on week leap in destination searches while Rhodes, Crete, Corfu and Santorini all seeing increases of more than 100%.

Chris Webber, head of travel deals at icelolly.com, said: “Searches doubles, bookings doubles and S20 shot up to 54% of all bookings for the last week as news of a potential traffic light system-to-be gave Brits the confidence to take the plunge with booking their next holiday.

“When the announcement finally comes this week we could see a further flurry of wannabe holidaymakers looking to secure the best deal on their 2020 holiday before demand pushes prices higher.”