The Olympics are finally here – and with Danny Boyle’s Opening Ceremony kicking off the “the greatest show on earth” last Friday online interest in the Olympics has reached fever pitch.

In the last week (w/e 28 July 2012) Olympics searches have quadrupled in the UK, with 1 in every 50 searches online containing either the word ‘olympics’ or ‘london 2012’.

What is interesting is that interest in the Olympics has a very strong skew to London and the South East. You can see from the chart below that visits to Olympics websites are densely clustered in the south of the UK, and the further north you move the less interested people are in visiting Olympics websites.

UK Interest in the Olympics is focussed on London and the South East

The size of the bubbles on the chart above represent the number of visits from that postal area whereas the colour of the bubble indicates the likelihood someone will visit an Olympics website based on the population average. Red and pink bubbles indicate low interest in the Olympics whereas green indicates high interest with the darker shades showing where interest is highest.

The data shows that Londoners are actually 25% more likely than the average Internet consumer to visit an Olympics website. Britons in the North West were the least likely to visit Olympics websites being 21% less likely than the UK average.

Zooming in on the London area you can start to see where interest peaks. Right in the centre of London there is low volume of visits but the bubble is a dark green indicating a strong propensity to visit Olympics websites. As we move slightly further out there are much bigger bubbles in particular around Kensington and Chelsea.

It's the affluent areas of London that capture most Olympic interest.

There are also high concentrations of Olympic interest slightly further afield in Kingston upon Thames, St Albans, Chelmsford, Hemel Hempstead and Guildford. What’s interesting here is that it’s the UK’s most affluent areas that show the most interest in the Olympics. In fact, using Experian Mosaic we can see that Alpha Territory, the most affluent and well educated demographic group in British society are twice as likely to visit Olympics sites as the average citizen.

Enjoy the Olympics, we will have more data updates throughout the games so be sure to stay tuned to the blog and on Twitter. If you want to find out more about how Experian Hitwise data can help your company please visit our website.