As we all know, the travel industry has been one of the hardest hit by the Covid-19 pandemic. And while it market remains challenging and consumer confidence unpredictable, there is, nevertheless, growing optimism about traveling again as lockdown restrictions begin to ease in the UK, Europe and more globally.

Here at Melt we’ve been closely monitoring Google Trends data throughout the pandemic to assess the levels of search interest across key travel segments, including flights, hotels, holidays, cruises and car hire. We’re keen to anticipate which areas will return to so-called normal levels first, and also identify what trends might emerge in this new and unknown landscape to better assist our clients.

But why stop there? We will now be sharing some of these insights monthly to help digital marketers and travel businesses be better prepared for the inevitable return of travel demand, which you’ll be pleased to hear is already underway.

One final note before we delve in. It’s important to remember that Google Trends data is very much a guide and that any trend should be validated with other qualitative and quantitative metrics before taking action. That said, it’s hoped that the following data will give you a steer on where to investigate next.

Methodology

• Defined an initial list of searches for each category
• Used Google Trends API to pull “interest over time” and “related queries” data at scale for against the travel category (67)
• Visualised summed averaged for each category by week in the “interest over time” graphs
• Analysed rising queries within “related queries” tables from the last 30 days

How to read the graphs

• The graphs represent the average trend score for the set of keywords defined in that category for the last three years split by week
• The pink shaded area represents 2020 to date. The other colours represent previous years
• Google trends is scored out of 100, which indicates its peak. The closer the data point is to 100, the more frequently people are searching

Accommodation

Interest over time (YOY)

The accommodation category covers queries relating to popular accommodation types. They include keywords like B&B, hotels, apartments, and camping.

As you can see below hotels searches have also started to rise from week 17 2020, but interestingly at a much steeper rate than flights:

Rising queries: “Hotels” (Last 30 Days)

The following table shows the rising related queries in order of value that Google Trends associates to the keyword “hotels” during the past 30 days:

Melt takeaways

We believe the steeper growth in search compared to flights is due to a rise in appetite for domestic travel, as well as road trips that feature a stayover.

Other indicators in the data to back this up include a recent rise in searches for “camping” and “campsites”. This has coincided with an improvement in weather, as well as the announcement from the UK government that campsites, along with hotels, would be allowed to open up again in early July.

A quick look at UK Google Trends over the last seven days – shown below – indicates that intent has already shifted to specific hotel name searches, both in the UK and abroad. Compare that to the last 30 days, where the focus has very much been on coastal-based searches in the UK – such as Bude, Blackpool, and Brighton – well, the difference is telling. We expect that in a month’s time we’ll see more searches for short-haul destinations, especially now that the UK government has lifted quarantine restrictions on arrivals from 50 over countries.

Another interesting search trend in rising queries is “day use hotels”, implying that people are looking at options for extended road trips and require hotels without a minimum stay and flexibility.

Finally, we’ve also noticed within our data – which is applicable to accommodation – how people are modifying their search queries to enable them to travel more safely during the pandemic. As you can see below, since March 2020 there’s been a steeper growth in terms like “clean”, “luxury” and “secluded” in comparison to “cheap”.

This perhaps indicates that people are willing to pay more to feel safer on their travels, and that they are also interested in staying in more remote and private accommodation for similar reasons.

We hope you’ve found these accommodation travel trends and insights useful. If so, check back in next month for more of the same. If you’d like us to monitor any particular trends for you travel or non-travel get in touch here.