London – United Kingdom (UK) airports are braced for an estimated surge of four million people who will be heading abroad for the festive season. However, analysis of the latest holiday-related search data from leading independent digital marketing agency, Greenlight, shows quarter-on-quarter web searches for vacations dropped 31%, with short-haul destinations taking the biggest hit.

Greenlight’s ‘Holiday Sector Report – Issue 19’ profiled consumer online search behaviour, identifying the most popular search terms used in November to find holidays to domestic, short-haul and long-haul destinations. 

The research found over 4.4 million holiday-related searches were made on Google UK in November compared to 6.4 million in August.

Quarter-on-quarter search demand for holidays to short-haul destinations dropped 34% from over 1.3 million queries in August to 885,000 in November.

Search volumes for holidays domestically likewise contracted 23% on the previous quarter.

However, totalling close to 983,000, those for long-haul holidays rose 2% on the previous quarter.

The U.S proved a popular draw.

Search-wise, New York topped the top ten long-haul holiday destination board, the term ‘New York Holidays’ accounting for 5% of queries. ‘Florida holidays’ followed (4%), then ‘Las Vegas holidays’ (3%).

Alongside the U.S, Dubai, The Maldives, Mexico, The Caribbean, Thailand, Cuba and Egypt also featured in the long-haul holiday top ten.

Greenlight determined which holiday-related websites were most visible to consumer searches both in Natural Search and Paid Media.

Overall, Travelsupermarket.com was the most prominent site to holiday-related queries in the organic listings. It was visible to over 2.8 million searches which saw it garner a 65% share of visibility.

Lowcostholidays.com was the most visible advertiser in the paid listings, attaining a 68% share of voice.

Greenlight’s twelve month retrospective charting overall holiday search volumes in 2013 shows they were at their lowest in January, when they stood at a little over 2.5 million and peaked at 7.2 million in September.