The Google Travel team in the UK issued a report today outlining important metrics it is seeing on travel search queries and volumes for the summer period.
Key points revealed in the White Paper include click analysis, CPC rates, impact of the FIFA World Cup, seasonality and destination trends.
Click analysis:
- Travel queries grown by 20% in the first six months of 2010 compared to the same period in 2009.
- Air-related queries increased by almost a quarter.
- Clicks on travel ads up 13% YTD on same period in 2009.
CPCs:
- Cost-per-click rates fallen by average of 4% year-on-year YTD.
- Hotel and car rates dropped by 7%.
World Cup:
- Query volumes historically fall during the tournament, picking up as countries are eliminated from the competition.
- In 2006 the number of queries dropped by 6% before bouncing back strongly after the event in August.
Seasonality:
- Travel queries have peaked earlier before public holidays than they did in 2009.
- This year queries reached a high 11 days before the May Bank Holiday weekend - four days before in 2009.
- No spike in queries before the 2009 August public holiday, but period expected to behave more like 2007/8 this year with definite spikes.
Top destinations:
- City breaks in Paris.
- Short haul to Turkey and Spain.
- Long haul to Australia, New York and Las Vegas.
Full copy of the White Paper.