There are multiple types of holidays you can go on, ranging from meditation retreats, skiing holidays, to last-minute summer breaks. Certain holidays are more prevalent in some countries, as well as users might be looking for the same type of holiday but using different search terms to look for it.

Research has determined that Americans are the second-biggest travel spenders after Chinese, followed by Germans. Brits are the 4th biggest spender on tourism, with the French in 5th and Australians in 6th position. The top 10 also includes Canadians, Russians, South Koreans, and Italians.

To see how travel and tourism search trends vary across different markets, using third-party tools, we have investigated the holiday and vacation search trends across four of the English-speaking countries on the top 10 list – the UK, the US, Canada, and Australia.

United Kingdom

“Last minute holidays” – average monthly search volume 405,000
UK search trends for travel and tourism industry

When it comes to the British population and searching for holidays, the most popular search revealed to be for last minute holidays.

August is the peak time and has been so for years as visible in the above graph. As apparent, there is a very steady seasonal trend of users searching for last-minute holidays in the summer months, with the search volume increasing consistently month over month from June till the end of August.

“Cheap holidays” – average monthly search volume 356,000

The second most popular search for Brits in terms of holidays is “cheap holidays”. As visible, over time, this search is decreasing in popularity, and in 2019 only reached 500,000 monthly searches in June and July. This is as opposed to previous years when the search volume was in the 700,000-900,000 for a prolonged period of four months.

“Holiday packages” – average monthly search volume 65,600

Package holidays in the UK have seen a significant increase in the past two years. This search term saw a significant increase in July 2018. On July 1st, 2018 the new European Package Travel Directive came into effect, which played a role in more holidays being classified as “package holidays”, therefore resulting in a spike for “holiday packages” searches.

The peak search time for package holidays is January, which is the peak time for the travel industry in general. Comparing the data studied in October 2019, when the average monthly search volume for “holiday packages” was 65,600, in January 2020 this search term had peeked to an average monthly search volume of 110,000.

United States

“Beach vacations” – average monthly search volume 15,100

Amongst the most popular beach vacation-related searches are “best beach vacations in the us”, “best family beach vacations”, as well as “florida beach vacations”, “family beach vacations” and cheap beach vacations us”. As visible, there is a demand for low cost, family-friendly vacations, as well as domestic holidays.

“Cheap vacations” – average monthly search volume 37,900

“All-inclusive vacations” – average monthly search volume 73,500

Whether your business is offering cheap or high-end luxury holidays, similarly to the UK, in the US, the peak booking time for both has proven to be January and the spring months.

In the months building up to the prime holiday booking time, optimise your website’s user experience and search engine performance. Look into optimising your landing pages, meta titles, images, testing website’s speed, and reassuring that check out works seamlessly to capitalise on the increased travel queries during the dark winter months.

“Vacation packages” – average monthly search volume 86,700

An area where there seems to be a negative trendline in search volume is for “vacation packages”. Although this search term still has a high average monthly search volume, it might be useful to keep in mind that fewer and fewer people in the US seem to be interested in package holidays.

The statistics are quite impressive – if you compare the data from January 2017, the search volume for this query has plummeted by almost 50% in January 2019.

A reason behind the rapid drop in search volume might be that more and more people use flight booking apps, flight and hotel comparison websites, private holiday accommodation platforms such as Airbnb, and research holiday accommodation themselves.

Canada

“All-inclusive vacations” – average monthly search volume 93,800

In Canada, however, all-inclusive vacations have seen the highest search volume amongst the different holiday package searches studied in this research. All-inclusive vacations have also seen a positive trend in the past two years. The highest search volume for all-inclusive vacations in Canada is for travel packages to Mexico, Florida, as well as for family-friendly and adults-only holidays.

“Last minute vacations” – average monthly search volume 56,800

As opposed to the UK, where users tend to search for last-minute holidays in the summer months with a peak in August, in Canada the peak time for last-minute vacations is January. These search trend differences can be easily explained by the different climates and lack of hot summers in the UK.

Australia

“Holiday packages” – average monthly search volume 20,100

“Holiday deals” – average monthly search volume 6,200

“Cheap holidays” – average monthly search volume 3,500

Interestingly, in Australia, the search volume for holidays and holiday packages, even cheap ones, is significantly lower than in the other markets, with searches for “holiday deals” and “cheap holidays” even declining in the past couple of years.

Australians are keen backpackers, and South East Asia is the most popular destination region for Australian travellers, accounting for 35% of all holidays from Australia. As backpacking trips are quite the opposite of package holidays, it might explain the low interest in holiday packages.