Last week UK Internet users searched for over 10,000 different searches containing the word ‘volcano’, up from less than 1,000 the previous week. The reason for this surge was the volcanic eruption in Iceland that has caused travel chaos across Northern Europe. As the chart below illustrates, UK Internet visits to Aviation websites (a category which includes both airline and airport homepages) increased by 45% last week. Interestingly, however, there wasn’t a noticeable spike in visits to Weather websites.

The table below lists the 20 fastest moving search terms within the Travel industry, and it’s dominated by Aviation terms. There are seven airport related terms in the list: Manchester, Heathrow, Gatwick, Glasgow, Newcastle, Bristol and Luton.

The top non-aviation fast moving travel search term was ‘eurostar’, and UK Internet visits Eurostar.com increased by 67% last week. In France, traffic increased by 22%. The other two transport areas to benefit from the flight cancellations were ferry companies (traffic to the industry was up 59% last week) and car hire provides (up 9%).
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