How has travel search changed during lockdown?

Staycation travel trends

Anyone who has tried to book accommodation in Northumberland or other popular UK spots will know that demand for ‘staycations’ has been much higher this year.

A Citysuites survey found that almost 25% would prefer to holiday at home until a coronavirus vaccine becomes available. This attitude, combined with changing rules on permitted destinations and quarantine requirements, means that holidays in the UK were more popular than they have been for a long time.

Holidays category | Travel trends over time | Google UK

All of the data featured in this blog post was taken from our travel trends 2020 report, download the report for more information.

Searches for UK holidays are normally well below those for trips to Europe and elsewhere, but this year they peaked higher than for any other destination in July 2020.

There were 4.17m UK holiday searches in July, which is 68% higher than for July 2019, with UK searches growing 761% post-lockdown.

The fastest growing search terms all reflect this trend. The term ‘staycation’ grew 511% year on year, while searches for key destinations such as Northumberland, Peak District and Norfolk all grew by more than 200%.

Highest growth | Search volume | Google UK

The ‘people also ask’ terms suggest that staycations were new for some, with questions around what it means, and even what to do on a staycation.

The presentation of search results changed as Google adapted to changing user behaviour. Using Pi’s SEO Platform we can see Text ads and top stories started to appear on search results, along with answer boxes.

Changing SERPs for ‘Staycations’

All of the data featured in this blog post was taken from our travel trends 2020 report, download the report for more information.

For specific destination searches, owners of hotels and holiday homes who’d considered local SEO and had taken care to keep their Google My Business profiles up to date were most visible on the search engine when search volumes increased.

Who dominates the travel SERPs?

For terms around holidays, TUI was the dominant website in August 2020, perhaps helped by the demise of major rival Thomas Cook (since reborn as an online only travel agent) last year.

TUI was dominant for holiday searches around foreign destinations though, with a far smaller share of voice for UK holidays.

Holidays category | Share of Voice | Google UK

All of the data featured in this blog post was taken from our travel trends 2020 report, download the report for more information.

In a year when staycations were the key travel search trend, sites such as lastminute.com, hoseasons.co.uk and forestholidays.co.uk had a greater share of voice.

Customer uncertainty reflected in search trends

While some customers are happy to travel, there are more questions and concerns around travel than ever before.
Government travel advice in the UK has been subject to rapid change frequently without warning. Recent changes to quarantine advice threw many travel plans into chaos, and made reliable travel planning very difficult.

Safety concerns have also come to the fore, with people understandably concerned about whether it’s safe to travel at the moment.

Google’s ‘people also ask’ feature reflects this, with questions around safety for specific destinations, and about whether it’s possible to travel there.

Google data shows trending searches around terms like ‘travel advice’. The data also shows similar travel trends for terms around refunds and cancellations.

These searches reflect the fact that potential travel customers are clearly looking for reassurance before booking flights and holidays.

Travel operators need to respond by providing clear information for customers. For example, they can inform customers about safety and hygiene measures taken to protect customers on flights, or to reassure them that bookings can be refunded or amended if circumstances change.

These concerns are front of mind for customers, so they should be able to find key information quickly. TUI, for example, has site wide messaging linking to its ‘Travel with confidence’ hub.

Within this hub, and during the research and booking process, TUI has provided details of what to expect, its social distancing measures, and increased flexibility for changing circumstances.

It’s vital that, once people have found a site through search, key information is provided for customers to book with confidence, which in turn helps travel sites to increase conversions from search traffic.

In Summary

This is clearly an unusual time for the travel industry, and it can be hard to plan precisely for the near future.

We may be over the worst of the restrictions caused by the pandemic, but there’s still enough uncertainty to harm customer confidence and to disrupt future travel plans.

Travel providers are best advised to focus their SEO efforts on boosting share of voice for terms around popular short-haul destinations and UK holidays until travel restrictions are lifted.

It’s also very important to provide useful content that informs and reassures customers about safety, and guarantees that customers won’t be wasting their money if their travel plans are disrupted by restrictions.

We could even be close to increased travel demand in the event that the pandemic comes under control, as people rush to take a long awaited holiday.

Whatever the outcome, learning about customer search behavior, understating their concerns, and optimising for key travel search trends can give you the edge over your competitors.

All of the data featured in this blog post was taken from our travel trends 2020 report, download the report for more information.