What are the most popular holiday destinations in England?

With that in mind, travellers have been searching for places to visit for many weeks or months ahead of when they actually depart. But does where we live perhaps affect where we travel to? And are there any noticeable differences in search behaviour from county to county?

We know from working with dozens of clients across the country that there are. We’re aware, for example, that travellers in larger cities often search for very different holidays compared to those in rural areas. But just how big is that gap?

This summer we put our data skills to the test to try and work this out - and the results are definitely worth a read!

A note on how to view the data

One point to note about our research - we didn’t look at absolute numbers. Why? Because when Spain consistently tops the charts as England’s favourite destination, a graph of total searches by each county ends up looking… well, painfully dull. Similarly, London has the biggest population according to both Google’s data and census data. Again, comparing search volumes for London against other counties isn’t going to be hugely helpful as London would always come out on top for each country as they have more searches across the board, therefore always putting them at the top.

So instead, we focused on the relative search popularity of destinations and holiday types. Rather than look at raw numbers, we ranked each county against all others to see where it came out on top. So, a county like South Yorkshire might’ve had more overall searches for a destination (like Spain) but when compared to all other counties and countries, it comparatively had more searches for Australia than anywhere else. Somerset had Croatia, and so on.

Which counties in England search for which countries?

Do travellers in the South go to different locations to those in the North? Is there an East/West divide when it comes to our favourite travel hotspots? Or is there little in the way of a geographical divide? As mentioned above, we wanted to look at the counties that scored higher than the rest of the England in our data, rather than just absolute numbers (otherwise it’d be Spain, USA, Thailand, Malta, Egypt and Albania) so with that in mind, here are the most popular places for countries across England.

What holiday types are most popular across England?

Are people in the North more sporty than those in the South? Do folk in the far West want to go on cruise holidays more than the rest of us? Were there other holiday stereotypes we could make up or back up with data? Perhaps - depending on how you view traditional regions and holidays habits!

From our dataset of over 1000 different travel related search terms, we have categorised them into various travel types from cruise to adventure to 18-30 holidays (yes - they still exist, to some people’s surprise!). We totalled each search term and matched it to counties across England to uncover some interesting insights. For cruise holidays, it’s perhaps no shock that several southern counties came out on top. Meanwhile, more landlocked and metropolitan areas showed a bigger appetite for package holidays, compared to regions where sea and sand (if not always sunshine) are a bit easier to find. Perhaps most interesting though is that those nearest the Southwest coast tend to search for holidays closer to home, rather than looking overseas.

What is the most searched travel company by county in England?

In our final map of England, we turned our attention to the big travel brands that carry the most passengers, and explored how our searches were spread across the country. The map makes for some interesting reading, with it being a pretty much even split across two brands – TUI and Jet2 Holidays. Love Holidays, On The Beach, Hays and Expedia also popped up regularly in the top five brands for each county with only Greater London searching Love Holidays more than any other travel brand.

Our data paints a clear picture of the country, with a noticeable divide between the South and the middle of England favouring TUI, while the North and East lean towards Jet2 Holidays. If we’d focused on the second most searched brand, the map would look much the same but with the colours reversed. Digging further down the list, Love Holidays and On the Beach frequently appeared in third and fourth place.

So what?

We always want to try and put data into context. Does knowing that some parts of England search for different types of holiday really matter? If you work in digital marketing, then I would say yes, very much so! We assume that age and location can be fairly good indicators of likelihood to purchase, so we hope that having data about actual search behaviour by county, type and location gives some good insights into where you might want to try and put your advertising pounds in the future.

If there are other bits of data you’d be interested in seeing by county, then please do let us know!

Want County Travel Search Data? We got it 😊