Tomorrow (Tue 10 Jan) is ‘Skyber Tuesday’, the busiest day of the year for traffic to Skyscanner.net, when hundreds of thousands of British travellers will log on to the flight comparison site to research and book their holidays.
The name has been coined from the term ‘Cyber Monday’ which refers to the busiest day of the year for internet commerce which occurs in the run up to Christmas (17 December in 2011).
Skyscanner CEO, Gareth Williams, commented:
“In Skyscanner’s very early days, the site came close to crashing in January due to the huge surge of people logging on to find their summer flights. We’ve long since added extra capacity to prevent that happening and today we expect to see thousands of users search for flights to over 2000 different destinations around the world.”
January is typically a very busy month for the travel industry with many Brits brightening the gloomy days of winter by planning and booking their summer holidays. Based on historical data, Skyscanner has predicted the destinations likely to be searched for on Tuesday.
At a country level, the Eurozone will continue to prove popular with Spain as the top searched for destination. Italy, France, Portugal and Germany are all predicted to be in the top ten.
Turkey, which is a good value destination this year due to the weakening of the Turkish Lira against the pound, is likely to also prove a popular choice at number six, while Australia is expected to reap the rewards of heavily promoting itself during 2011, at number nine.
At a city level, Malaga, gateway to the Costa Del Sol, is predicted to be the top searched for destination, with Tenerife and Alicante in second and third position. Neighbouring Faro then follows with Palma predicted to be the 5th most searched for destination. Despite this period of austerity, long haul flights to New York, Orlando and Bangkok are also predicted to be in the top ten most popular searched destinations.
Top Ten searched for countries predicted for ‘Skyber Tuesday’
1. Spain
2. USA
3. UK
4. Italy
5. France
6. Turkey
7. Portugal
8. Germany
9. Australia
10. Cyprus
Top Ten searched for cities predicted for ‘Skyber Tuesday’
1. Malaga
2. Tenerife
3. Alicante
4. Faro
5. Palma
6. New York
7. Orlando
8. Bangkok
9. London
10. Amsterdam
Sam Baldwin, Skyscanner Travel Editor commented:
“Skyber Tuesday is Skyscanner’s busiest day and always a good indicator of where the big summer destinations of the year will be. Many airlines such as BA, Qantas, BMI and Virgin Atlantic offer discounts in January, and savvy travellers take advantage of this by booking their flights now for travel later in the year.”
