Las Vegas and Disney will be the top travel destinations this summer. In an analysis of nearly 1,000 travel-related keywords - searched an estimated 2.4 billion times on Google during January and February 2012 - AdGooroo, a digital marketing firm, found Disney accounted for 7.3 percent of all travel-related searches, followed by Las Vegas at 6.3 percent.
This, AdGooroo says, places the two vacation destinations ahead of all others explored by online searchers, followed by Florida (5.7 percent), the Caribbean (3.2 percent), Mexico (2.1 percent) and Hawaii (1.1 percent).
The study was conducted using AdGooroo’s Industry Insight search marketing tool, which measures search data for more than 160 industries.
The overall most popular travel topic searched was not destinations, however, but transportation (airlines, trains, auto rentals) at 33.6 percent of all searches, the study reports.
Lodging/hotels were at 21.3 percent, suggesting Americans may already have a good idea where they are going this summer but need to find out how they will get there and where they will stay, AdGooroo says. The next most popular travel topics were destinations (17.7 percent), ticketed attractions (10.8 percent), cruises (9.1 percent), booking sites (3.6 percent) and travel packages (3.1 percent).
Among all travel topics, keywords focused on travel packages recorded the highest click through rate, 9.8 percent. Keyword searches related to booking sites such as Orbitz, Expedia and Travelocity generated the lowest click through rate at 2.7 percent, AdGooRoo says.
As evidence of a still-sluggish economy, the study found significant bargain-hunting activity, with 13.3 percent of total travel-related searches containing words such as coupon, discount, cheap, low-price and deal, AdGooroo says.
“Travel is one of the most keyword-competitive industries,” said Richard Stokes, founder and CEO of AdGooroo. “So it represents fertile ground for search marketers in the travel category to apply Industry Insight and deepen their understanding both of their marketplace and the competitive landscape.”
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