UK travel demand has surged post-COVID. Booking demand peaked in 2023–2024, which reflected the height of the post-pandemic travel boom. However, the past year (July 2024 – June 2025) has seen a clear drop across all stages in the consumer travel journey, suggesting a more cautious travel mindset is arising.
In this article, we examine the search trends behind the consumer travel journey – from ‘dreaming’ about travel, ‘considering’ purchasing, ‘booking’ a trip then ‘planning’ it – to uncover key trends brands can tap into.
Source: Google Keyword Planner, UK, Top 10 search keywords per category
The travel consumer journey
Source: Google Keyword Planner, UK, Top 10 search keywords per category
Dreaming
Upper funnel keywords, in the form of non-specific aspirational searches, such as ‘best places to go on holiday’, ‘iconic destinations’ and ‘best countries to visit’ have seen more variability, peaking from March to August across the years. This indicates that brands need a sustained presence of inspirational content throughout spring and summer, not just limited to the first part of the year.
This stage has attracted 1.71 million searches over the past year (UK Google search data, limited to the 10 highest volume keywords from July 2024 – June 2025) and saw the highest decrease over the past year (-22%), driven by consumer interest loss with ‘Iconic Destinations’.
Travel videos on YouTube also fell slightly short of the popularity achieved last year, which aligns with the overall search travel trends and decrease across all the consumer journey stages.
Source: Google Trends, YouTube searches for Travel Topic (UK)
On a positive note, ‘Tourism Attractions’ rose in popularity by +11%, indicating that consumers are open to exploration that is not necessarily limited to a specific destination.
Considering
The ‘Considering’ stage attracted 1.59 million searches (UK Google search data, limited to the 10 highest volume keywords from July 2024 – June 2025) and saw -15% search interest decrease, with lower search volumes across all H1 months as well as a slightly shorter consideration window than last year. ‘Weekend breaks UK’ still dominates the Considering stage with 462k searches over the past year, despite the -15% drop vs last year.
Further, mid-funnel keywords such as ‘best European city breaks’, ‘weekend away UK’, ‘holidays in greek islands’ have peaked in January every year, likely driven by New Year resolutions and planning habits.
Booking
The ‘Booking’ stage, the biggest out of the 4 stages with 8.19 million searches, has decreased by -17%, despite continued growth in consumer interest into ‘Last Minute Package Holiday Deals’ (+12%). Unique visitors to travel booking sites decreased by -4% on average, with Skyscanner seeing -6% unique visitor decrease and jet2.com being the biggest gainer, achieving +15% unique visitor increase.
Lower funnel keywords such as ‘last minute holiday deals’ or ‘fly to Barcelona’, have consistently peaked in May-July, indicating consumer tendency to book holidays last minute.
Planning
The ‘Planning’ stage attracted 1.96 million keywords (UK Google search data, limited to the 10 highest volume keywords from July 2024 – June 2025) and saw the lowest decrease of -6%, with Tripadvisor.co.uk still attracting almost 17M unique visitors a year (-17% vs last year).
‘Things to do’ in various destinations dominated the top 10 keywords with ‘Things to do in Paris’ achieving the highest interest growth vs last year (+6%), indicating consumer interest rise into city breaks.
Lower funnel keywords related to things to do, places to stay in specific destinations, holiday planners and packing lists have seen a peak in May-July, which aligns with Booking spikes.
Case Study: The Jet2 Holidays trend - From TV jingle to TikTok takeover - How did Jet2 turn viral chaos into brand currency?
Jet2’s cross-channel presence and timely engagement turned an unexpected social trend into a strategic moment of cultural relevance.
Source: TikTok Interest data (indexed), UK
The #Jet2 evolution timeline
- Dec-22: Jet2 campaign launched on UK TV & digital (30 and 10sec spots) featuring the “Nothing beats a Jet2 holiday” line
- Jan-24: Official YouTube upload of the full TV advert
- Aug-24: TikTok debut of the advert soundbite
- Nov-24: First consumer viral post featuring the soundbite
- Apr-25: Jet2 taps into the viral trend and launches #Jet2Challenge
- Apr-25 onwards: The trend gains further virality boost
Jet2 turned a viral meme risk into a brand win
After TikTok users hijacked their ad audio for travel fail videos, Jet2 launched the #Jet2Challenge, driving lip-sync content, influencer buzz, and Gen Z engagement. Below features some of the viral memes that took TikTok by storm.
First viral meme (November 2024)
Video featuring a camel attack in a desert with Jet2 holiday ad voiceover was the first one to go viral and start the trend, framing the audio as a soundtrack for travel disasters. This unexpected use created strong associations between Jet2 and holiday mishaps, posing an early reputational risk by distorting the brand’s intended message.
Views: 18.8M | Likes: 3.8M
Jet2 announces competition inviting to lip sync (April 2025)
The brand turned the situation around by embracing the trend. They introduced a new voiceover and launched the #Jet2Challenge, encouraging consumers to lip-sync for a chance to win holiday vouchers.
Views: 34.2M | Likes: 1.4M
Jet 2 holidays voiceover artist does lip sync (June 2025)
“Only slightly exaggerated re-enactment of inside the voiceover booth. Guys, lip-syncing to myself was harrrrrd, you lot are better! I tried a version with a dance routine but I’m an elderly millennial”
Views: 1.9M | Likes: 42.1K
The brand’s timely involvement allowed it to regain control of the narrative, shift the focus from travel mishaps to playful engagement, and boost relevance among Gen Z audiences while capitalising on the trend’s virality. As other travel brands struggled, Jet2.com achieved +15% increase in unique site visitors and saw a TikTok interest increase of 682% (indexed data, December 2022 vs April 2024).
Contact gaganpreet.kour@kantar.com to find out more about these travel trends.