UK Travellers go online as the England team returns home

Last week we predicted around a 7% Week on Week (WoW) increase in Travel queries following England's departure from the World Cup.

Latest data shows that the week after England team's departure from the World Cup:
Travel Queries rose by +9% WoW.
Clicks on Travel ads increase by +15% WoW.

The fact that clicks on Travel ads grew at a faster rate than queries suggests that the consumers who are searching for Travel products now, are looking to purchase in the near future, rather than just researching holiday destinations.

These Week on Week increases occurred across all sectors of Travel. Flights and Hotels categories showed the highest click and query growth.

Rashad Sharif, Industry Analyst

Did the World Cup affect Travel queries?

Posted by Rashad Sharif, Industry Analyst.

Following England's departure from the World Cup last Sunday, I've attempted to quantify the impact this year's tournament has had on UK Travel queries.

Main findings:
• We would have expected 10% more queries and 8% more clicks in the past 3 weeks had the world cup not taken place.
• Package Holiday & Car Hire queries/clicks were most impacted, though all Travel sectors were affected.
• If 2010 follows 2006 seasonality, we expect a 7% increase in travel queries this week.
Estimates take into consideration: Current YoY average growth rates, 2006 seasonality, last year’s trends and month on month growth rates.

The graphs above illustrate the differences in growth rates as a result of the World Cup for each Travel sector.

England is Out of the World Cup - Here's the Silver Lining

While we may be dismayed at England's abrupt World Cup departure, the UK travel industry is gearing up for a surge in queries and bookings. We saw this behaviour during the last World Cup (see most recent blog post for the data) and a recent article on Travelmole.com is predicting the same. In fact, one tour operator saw a week on week increase in web traffic of 40% following England's loss yesterday.

We advise you to check budgets to ensure they are adequate for capturing the expected interest. Also, conversion rates are expected to rise as "lookers" turn into "bookers." Adjust bids accordingly to gain visibility for your advertisements.

Nate Bucholz from Google Travel UK

How will the World Cup affect Travel queries?

By Rashad Sharif

In order to estimate the likely impact of the 2010 World Cup on UK travel queries, we have taken a look at the trends we saw during the last World Cup in 2006.

The graph below demonstrates the month on month (MoM) change in travel query volumes from May – July, across a five year period (2005-2009).

Every year, travel queries increased month-on-month by 2-5 % from May to June. This is expected seasonality as we get closer to the peak of the summer.

The only year we saw an exception to this seasonality was in 2006, the year the last World Cup was held, where we saw a 6% decrease MoM. As this is the only noticeable exception over a five year period, it is highly likely that the MoM decrease was the result of consumers choosing to stay at home to follow the tournament on television rather than travel.

This trend becomes more apparent when we look at MoM query growth between June and July, where generally we see a 3-9% increase. 2006 saw an above average 13% MoM in July, which indicates that interest in travel picked up immediately after the tournament ended.

We then looked at indexed travel queries on a daily basis, to see when exactly travel queries increase from June into July. The chart below shows daily indexed travel queries from May – July for three years 2005-2007 for comparative purposes:

Indexed query volumes in June 2006 were lower than in 2005/2007 – indicates less travel activity in 2006 as consumers watch the tournament at home rather than booking their holidays.

Change in seasonality at start of July 2006 - queries rose rapidly as soon as England dropped out of World Cup, whereas in 2005/2007 queries were falling during this time. This is a clear indication that consumers start looking for holidays once they lose interest in the tournament.