What insights can Google Trends provide about tourism in specific destinations?

These pages explore the potential of using data on the internet search behaviour of visitors to inform strategic decision making relating to tourism destinations.

In particular, they look at Google Trends which includes information back to January 2004 on searches related to tourism from the world’s most used search engine.

The information here is based on a paper from the Tourism Intelligence Unit (TIU) of the Office for National Statistics (ONS) which was drafted for the 2nd International Conference on the Measurement and Economic Analysis of Regional Tourism.

The core of this work presents examples of the use of Google Trends in providing insight into the characteristics of potential visitors to destinations and of how they search for information about particular locations.

• Google Trends and Tourism - summary

  Google Trends and Tourism - summary of article

• Google Trends and Tourism - introduction

  How Google Trends provides weekly information about internet searches

• Google Trends and Tourism - Section 1: Key facts about Google Trends

  The basic features of Google Trends

• Google Trends and Tourism - Section 2: Basic methods of using Google Trends

  Three methods of using Google Trends to make comparisons

• Google Trends and Tourism - Section 3: Caveats to be considered when using Google Trends

  Issues that need to be considered when using Google Trends data

• Google Trends and Tourism - Section 4: Potential pitfalls to avoid when using Google Trends

  Example of the care that is needed when choosing destination-based search terms

• Google Trends and Tourism - Section 5: Comparison of Google Trends with official data

  Takes two sets of currently available official data and compares them with related information from Google Insights for Search

• Google Trends and Tourism - Section 6: Examples of seasonality in Google Trends

  A variety of presentations of Google Trends data highlighting how the tool can assist with analysis of aspects of tourism to different types of destination

• Google Trends and Tourism - Section 7: Examples of the impact of major events in Google Trends

  Examples of the impact of major events in Google Trends searches

• Google Trends and Tourism - Section 8: Examples of the impact of news stories in Google Trends

  How recent news stories affect searches using Google Trends

• Google Trends and Tourism - Section 9: Implications of previous research

  Introduces and summarises recent reports that focus on Google Trends tool and highlights the research within these that has implications for tourism

• Google Trends and Tourism - Conclusion and references

  Conclusion and references