Experian Hitwise, the leading online competitive intelligence service, reveals the top 50 travel destinations by UK Internet searches for flights to holiday resorts and cities. Between May and July 2010 New York was the most popular destination, accounting for 3.89% of all flights searches by UK Internet users.

Spain was the most popular country for flight searches during the 12 week period, with Spanish resorts in Tenerife, Malaga and Alicante all featuring prominently in the list. Searches for flights within the Eurozone remained popular, accounting for 43.32% of the total flights searches during the quarter. The results were taken from Experian Hitwise's first quarterly travel report, also released today.

New York tops destination list and increases market share of flight searches

In an analysis of the top 1,000 flights-related search terms for the quarter, New York was the most searched for destination. Searches for 'flights to new york' and 'cheap flights to new york' were the second and third most popular search terms for the sector. The single most popular search term for the quarter was 'flights to australia', representing nearly 1% of all flights searches.

In the July quarter last year New York accounted for 3.16% of flight searches in the UK. For the 12 weeks ending 31 July 2010 searches for flights to the Big Apple had increased to 3.89%, representing a year on year increase of 0.73%.

"The US is clearly still a big attraction for UK holidaymakers with New York, Florida and Orlando all featuring the top 10 of our list of top travel destinations," commented Experian Hitwise's Director of Research, Robin Goad. "The fact that only six destinations in the top 50 kept the same place as they had last quarter shows just how changeable search behavior is online in the travel sector."

UK and Greece improve position in top country destination list

During the quarter Spain topped the list for country destinations, accounting for 16.59% of all flight searches. The UK, Turkey, Greece and Canada all moved up in the table compared to last quarter, while Australia and Italy both slipped two places.

The UK improved its position this quarter from fourth to third place, accounting for 6.68% of all flight searches. "The increased interest in the UK point to a recurring trend in "staycation" holidays this year," added Mr Goad, "Newquay has emerged as one of the most up and coming UK holiday destinations jumping from 49th place to 31st place in the top 50 destinations list."

Greece climbed two spots this quarter to seventh place, helped by surging interest in resorts in Zante, Rhodes, Crete and Corfu. The attraction of cheaper holidays and reduced prices in Greece since last year is paying dividends with increased Internet searches.

ΠΗΓΗ: TravelDailyNews.com