Think Quarterly

While we always think "travel first" on the Google UK Travel Blog, sometimes we would like to share with you information and ideas that are applicable to the wider community and all industries. Matt Brittin, Managing Director of UK & Ireland Operations for Google today kicked off Think Quarterly. Think Quarterly contains advice and wisdom from some of the brightest minds and leaders from Google and the UK business sector. In Matt's words, "Think Quarterly is a breathing space in a busy world. It's a place to take time out and consider what's happening and why it matters." We hope you find it both enjoyable and useful.

Posted by Nate Bucholz, Industry Manager

Easter & Royal Bank Holiday Whitepaper

2011 is a great year for Easter bank holidays! To help advertisers plan for the coming season, we have analysed trends in 2010 and 2011 (to date) and have written our findings in the latest whitepaper, which you can download here.

Travel query growth year-to-date suggests that demand from the online travel consumer continues to grow (29% year-to-date), and we expect this to carry through the Easter weekend. The upcoming Royal Wedding may increase tourism within the UK. Sweden had the last major European Royal Wedding in July 2010. During this month, queries for hotels in Sweden originating from the USA grew 40% year-on-year. More impressively, hotel queries within Sweden rose 124% Year-on-year.

We have also noticed more interest for short haul destinations when compared to long haul, the former growing 20% vs.7% year-on-year in January 2011.

For a more detailed analysis, please download the whitepaper. We hope you find the insights and recommendations helpful.

Jonny Cranmer, Industry Analyst

Destination Analysis: Week 8, 2011

Attached is the destination analysis for the same 5 products:

Hotels
Hostels
Holidays
Car Hire
Flights

It's interesting to note the start of the summer curve; some destinations have been experiencing traffic increases over the past few weeks.

We are working on a revised set of destinations in order to capture the highest ranking destinations searched for in the UK. We will publish this revised list in the next iteration of our reports (in two weeks time).

Stephen Cunningham, Industry Analyst.