The dust has settled on another Peaks and it’s time to ask the question: how was it for you? The general consensus seems to be...pretty good thanks! We’ve seen plenty of positive news come out in the press and things have generally been great, judging by what I’ve seen and heard from those I’ve spoken to.
Like always though, the breadth of travel searches is never spread evenly. Some destinations and holiday types are more popular than others as trends come and go alongside other world events (we covered this in our 2025 travel trends blog - go have a read!)
The headlines in search for travel in January 2025
- Overall search in travel was up 3% year on year.
- The biggest sector of growth was in country specific holidays (13%) alongside cruise searches (11%).
- Certain countries had surges in demand this year, with Thailand (50%), Japan (22%) and Egypt (50%) the biggest winners of high search volume phrases (over 50,000 a month).
- South Korea saw a 175% increase in searches in January as interest in the country continues to grow.
- A large part of the growth in cruise was for the terms ‘norwegian cruises’ (up 22%) ‘panama canal cruise’ (83%) and 'japan cruise’ (174%). River cruise terms are also very much on the up too, demonstrating continued strong growth in that part of the market.
- In the package sector, all-inclusive searches were down in the main which drove the overall decline in that market. That said, some locations like Greece, Majorca and Cyprus saw a come back for package deals.
- One of the biggest changes year on year was for ‘northern lights holidays’ which sadly dropped from 12,100 searches in January 2024 to 4,400 this January. It seems the buzz for the lights has been dampened significantly, perhaps due to changes in general demand and also the fact we had the lights over the UK in the latter months of 2024.
- ‘Escorted tours’ also dropped by nearly 60% year on year too which was somewhat of a surprise given the number of products on offer for this market.
Top ten winners and losers for January 2025 (over 5,000 searches)
Biggest increases in traffic
If you’re wondering why the changes are all coming out the same in terms of changes, it’s because Google Ads’ Keyword Planner tool only ever gives estimates within groups of numbers, so the same numbers are used over and over again rather than being ‘accurate’. Therefore, the changes are often of the same proportion, hence why we have several countries at 83% increase.
Biggest drops in traffic
What of our recent traveller darlings?
In the last two years we’ve frequently raved about Albania, thanks to its impressive growth in search interest and visitor numbers. However, for the first time in several years, Albania didn’t make our top ten list for search demand. That’s because demand in January 2025 remained unchanged from January 2024 (the same was also true for Malta). It seems that growth there has slowed (for now at least) as it becomes an established destination (as recently noted in a TTG survey of their travel agents who have been putting it #1 on their recommended list).
Other big growers in 2024 like Bosnia & Herzegovina, South Korea and Austria also saw strong growth in January 2025, experiencing big double digit increases. It would appear that the trends of 2024 are very much continuing for many places, with little drop off from 2024 although some have seen a bit of a plateau.
Finally, what of cruise?
For the past two years, I’ve been closely tracking trends in the cruise market. It’s largely been a boom time, with records shattered almost every month for searches done year on year and bookings have followed suit.
However, the outlook isn’t quite as rosy as before. Towards the end of last year, numbers began to slow for both short-term and long-term bookings. I had hoped that January would bring a surge in searches to help regain momentum, but that unfortunately failed to materialise.
The graphs below show that generic searches for both ‘cruise holidays <year>’ and ‘river cruises <year>’ were both down this January compared to last and even previous years.
While generic cruise searches have declined both year-over-year and over the past six months, the overall outlook isn’t all doom and gloom. In fact, cruise-related searches for the hundreds of phrases we’re tracking saw a 5% uplift this January - an encouraging sign! This growth has been largely driven by increased interest in river cruise brands and cruises in Asia and Europe. It seems that cruise travellers in 2025 have a clear destination in mind and are searching in greater numbers than ever!
That's all for now!
Stay tuned for more search travel stats in a few months' time when we take a look at how Q1 performed - see you then!
