People are using the Internet more and more when it comes to planning their holidays. Travel agencies have moved their businesses online, and aspiring holiday-goers can now take full advantage of the many ways of planning your own holiday on the world wide web. More often than not, when searching online, people tend to search with a specific destination in mind.
According to Google’s most recent data, Czech people are planning on travelling to Italy and Germany, while the most searched city is currently Vienna. On the other hand, people searching for Czechia from abroad are mostly coming from Germany and the United Kingdom. Of course, Czechs are also still showing a clear interest in travelling within Czechia, too. Here’s an overview of the most popular travel-related Google searches for Czechia in 2016.1
Destinations take centre stage
Of all the tourism categories, Czechs are mainly interested in holiday destinations (64%), followed by hotels, then flights. When it comes to hotels, almost one third of searches (65%) are directly related to the hotel’s destination. The destination is also the main search attribute used when people are looking for information about buses and trains, or holiday packages and last-minute trips. However, when searching for flights, Czech users are not all that interested in the end destination (8%) and simply tend to search for the carrier name (84%).
A more ‘mobile’ world
Almost one third of travel-related searches in 2016 were carried out via mobile phones. In the category of tourism, this is a year-on-year increase of 63%. From their mobile, Czech users search mostly for private transport and taxis (59%), tips for nearby activities (39%), buses and trains, short trips, or the weather.
Prague and Italy win the popular vote
The data shows that 42% of the destinations searched for by Czech users were for places within Czechia – a clear indication that Czechs like to explore a little closer to home, too. Prague, Brno, Český Krumlov and Karlovy Vary are the most searched for domestic destinations. Kutna Hora recorded the biggest year-on-year increase, a 51% jump in fact, followed by Brno and Špindlerův Mlýn. In terms of foreign destinations, Czechs show the greatest interest in Italy, Germany, Austria and Spain. The most popular cities abroad are Vienna, Budapest and Berlin, but searches for Bratislava and Amsterdam are becoming increasingly more common.
Piquing German and British interest
Two thirds of searches (66%) relating to Czechia come from abroad. Most searches are happening in Germany and the UK, followed by Poland, the US and Italy. Within the CEE region, Czechia is the only country that foreigners are more interested in than the country’s residents themselves.
Summer highs and winter peaks
The summer months show the highest volume of travel-related searches with most search queries carried out in July (compared to the fewest in February). Last-minute deals are most searched for between the months of June and August. Taxi and car searches peak in December. Flights are searched for continuously throughout the year, peaking in the month of October.
Manic Monday: The great holiday search begins…
Czechs typically search for travel- and holiday-related topics on a Monday, after which the frequency of queries decreases until Saturday. People start searching at around 10 a.m., with the number of search queries culminating at around 9 p.m.
