With the latest travel quarterly report out today it’s time to look again at the top 50 destinations online that consumers want to fly to. Sharm-el-Sheikh emerged as the fastest moving destination this quarter, breaking back into the top 50 list after a nine month absence from the list.

New York was once again the most popular destination this quarter accounting for over 5% of all flight searches between May and July 2011. Four of the top 10 destinations were in Spain this quarter, with Tenerife, Malaga, Alicante and Barcelona leading the charge for the Spanish resorts.

There were nearly 2 billion visits to the travel industry this quarter, making it one of the busiest ever three month periods for the sector. As well as New York’s success, Chicago, Las Vegas and Orlando were all among the fastest moving destinations this quarter, highlighting a surge in interest for destinations in the States. Chicago climbed 22 places since the April quarter, making it the second fastest climber after Sharm-el-Sheikh, which was up 25 places since April.
Of course, Sharm has been hit by two major threats to its tourist trade with the shark attack which occurred in December 2010 and the political unrest in January and February. The indications are though that the coastal resort is recovering well and saw a 21% increase in searches for flights and holidays this quarter, taking the destination to 39th in our list.

You can find out more about Sharm and the other fast moving destinations this quarter by downloading the travel report which is available totally free. We are also running a travel webinar on Friday 16 September 2011 at noon which will tap into the latest travel trends as well as how you can make the most of Olympics next year. Otherwise, you can follow us on Twitter for all the latest data updates.