As the year draws to a close, chief executive of specialist travel marketing agency Adido Andy Headington reveals which destinations and sectors are on the up
With 2024 coming to an end, it’s an opportune time to look back at how the last quarter fared.
Often seen as a busy period for ‘lates’, with last minute bargains and travellers finally pressing the book button after months of deliberation, we’ve studied the data to discover how search volumes have changed year on year.
The headline news is that overall travel search volumes continue to increase, with an impressive growth of 21% for the quarter. This is on top of an 18% jump in the year before and demonstrates the overall increase of searches being carried out on Google.
The biggest growth by country in pure percentage terms was Bosnia and Herzegovina, which was 126% up for this year, closely followed by Albania, which saw an increase of 117%, continuing its strong performance from 2023 (during which it grew by 112%).
The top 5 winners are:
- Bosnia and Herzegovina up 126%
- Albania up 117%
- Chile up 96%
- Algeria up 88%
- Montenegro up 83%
When it comes to the biggest losers in this quarter, it’s not surprising that there’s an impact on travel to areas where there is ongoing conflict. In addition, other destinations have fallen out of favour to some degree, such as Iceland and the UAE.
- Israel down 37%
- Senegal down 30%
- Jordan down 28%
- Iceland down 28%
- UAE down 28%
Analysing the lates market
With some businesses and travel agents reporting a drop in demand in Q2 after a decent start to the year, there was plenty of hope being placed on a strong lates market to boost booking numbers in the third quarter. So, did that happen?
If we look at the types of holidays that were searched for more this year versus previous years, we can see a shift towards UK, luxury holidays and 18-30 style holidays outside of the continued growth in cruise and ski, both of which have performed well all year. There has been a push towards UK-based holidays, for example, ‘campsites Cornwall’ was up 250%, and ‘caravan breaks in the UK’ up 65%, perhaps indicating a switch to different types of holidays this summer.
If we compare these UK-based searches to holiday searches in traditionally popular countries in Europe, then the link continues. ‘Holidays in France’, ‘Menorca holidays’ and ‘Greece holidays’ all saw search growth of less than 5%.
When the average of the quarter for this year versus last year is 21%, a small single digit increase indicates a weak signal in the last-minute market compared to other much ‘bigger’ destinations. Similarly, package holiday related phrases also fell.
Carrying on the trend of an apparent flatlining of overseas travel for families this summer, a deep dive on villa related phrases shows a drop in overall search volume for the second year in a row. Overall, search volume for villa-related phrases dropped 2% this year compared to 2023, and that was from a drop of 10% the year before.
It would appear that the boom in villas post pandemic was a blip and the general trend is one of gradual decline.
What about cruise?
No sector has grown at such a scale in recent years than cruise. Overall, the general news for Q3 remains positive. Looking at searches carried out for brands and generic phrases, both are significantly up on 2023. Generic searches for Q3 are up 40% this year (and 24% last year) and for brand searches, it is an increase of 25% (compared to 22% last year). When it comes to the split between ocean and river cruise, there is only a small difference, with ocean winning out by 5% points (22% v 17%).
All in all, it’s positive news yet again in cruise, although the one note to consider is that searches ahead of the curve this year have slowed down. Searches for the phrase ‘cruise holidays <year>’ have decreased slightly, at -3%. However, for ‘river cruise holidays <year>’, it’s the opposite with +14%, which could indicate a small switch from ocean to river.
Final points
Our Q3 research reinforces some longer-term key market trends; namely, cruise continues to grow, interest in Albania remains strong, and other markets are slowing down.
As such, the opportunities for agents are clear. For some regions, sectors and countries, things are tough, while others have seen huge impacts on their revenue due to ongoing conflicts.
And so, we look forward with interest to analyse and understand what impact Q4 has as we approach the all-important peaks period.