Consumer online searches for hotels and lodgings based domestically outnumbered those located overseas by three to one, reveals the latest data from leading independent digital marketing agency, Greenlight.
Of that total, 1.8 million (58%) queries pertained to hotels based domestically, compared to 12% (382,610 searches) and just 8% (236,710 searches) for accommodation in short-haul and long-haul destinations, respectively.
Greenlight’s findings follow on from preliminary hotel figures released by business advisory and accountancy firm BDO LLP in July, highlighting the health of the UK hotel sector a year on from the Olympics. They showed a 6.7% year-on-year increase in occupancy from 75.3% to 80.4% in the regions whilst occupancy rates in London increased by 10% from 79.2% to 87.1%, indicative, says the firm, of the UK hotel sector being in good shape to take advantage of the nascent economic recovery.
Most popular domestic hotel-related search terms
Greenlight’s research shows that on the domestic front, London was the biggest draw. Cumulatively, online searches for hotels in the UK capital accounted for 13% of queries. Brighton followed with 4%.
Greenlight’s report reveals the ten most popular domestic hotel-related search terms as being:
‘hotels in london’ (90,500 searches)
‘london hotels’ (74,000 searches)
‘cheap hotels in london (60,500 searches)
‘blackpool hotels’ (33,100 searches)
‘hotels in york’ (33,1000 searches)
‘hotels in edinburgh’ (27,100 searches)
‘hotels in manchester’ (27,100 searches)
‘hotels in brighton’ (27,100 searches)
‘brighton hotels’ (27,100 searches)
‘cheap london hotels’ (22,200 searches)
Most visible websites for domestic hotel-related searches
Greenlight charted the most visible players online for hotels in long-haul, short-haul and domestic destinations.
For domestic hotel-related queries, Laterooms.com was the most visible site in the organic* listings, attaining a 22% share of visibility.
Booking.com was the most prominent advertiser in the paid listings**, with 70%.
Interestingly, of the 10 most visible sites in Greenlight’s natural search listings, four were hotel chains, compared to just two in the paid listings.
The report’s 12 month retrospective view of online searches for hotels shows queries peaked in March, the highest thus far for 2013, when they totalled 3.7 million, up 85% on February’s volume of 2 million, the lowest this year.
*Natural /organic Search - Listings in search engine results pages that appear because of their relevance to the search terms
**Paid Media – an Internet advertising model used on websites, in which advertisers pay their host only when their ad is clicked. With search engines, advertisers typically bid on keyword phrases relevant to their target market.
Greenlight’s ‘Hotel Sector Report – Issue 17’ profiles consumer search behaviour in this sector, providing an exclusive snapshot of the online search and social media market, from the size of the potential audience to the top performing companies. The report assesses which brands, websites and advertisers are the most visible in natural, paid media results and social media and hence have the greatest share of consideration when consumers go to Google UK to search for hotels in long-haul, short-haul and domestic destinations.