Quoting from the report at Think With Google:
"We looked across billions of searches to see travelers' digital journey to this year's hot spots...Looking at the fastest-rising searches from the first half of this year, a handful of destinations rose to the top...Who's interested in going to these cities? Consumer behavior across the web shows who potential travelers may be, where they are, and other passion points..."
Audience of interest was constrained to men and women in the USA aged 18-65+.
The top 5 fastest rising cities, and who's interested in going there:
- Reykjavik
- Women aged 25-34, no children
- Live in New York
- Interested in hiking
- Prefer to fly KLM Royal Dutch Airlines
- Havana
- Men aged 35-44, no children
- Live in Florida
- 86% are movie fans
- Prefer to fly JetBlue
- Toronto
- Men aged 25-34, no children
- Live in Michigan
- Hockey fans
- Prefer to fly Air Canada
- Mexico City
- Men aged 35-44, with or without children equally likely
- Live in Texas or California
- Interested in football
- Prefer to fly United Airlines
- Tokyo
- Men aged 25-34, no children
- Live in Hawaii
- 76% are technophiles
- Prefer to fly Cathay Pacific
Obviously, considering the source, this is a pitch for paid advertising on Google's search and display networks. But there's nothing wrong with that. The results are actionable.
For instance, some useful things Tourism Toronto could do with the data from Google:
- Geotarget Michigan.
- Place display ads on sites frequented by hockey fans, and other sites of interest to men aged 25-34 likely to travel as singles, couples or other adult groups.
- Partner with Air Canada.
We all know Google is greedy - everything about their system operates so as to maximize revenues and margin for Google - but to stay in business they need to share the wealth with advertisers, and this is a good example of that.
