Did travel searches peak in summer 2025?

At the beginning of 2025, after a good ‘peaks’ period in the travel industry, a lot of attention then went to the other big traditional market of the year – lates. When travellers don’t book their trips in the more popular booking months at the start of the year, the hope then is that bookings will eventually land later in the year, or more specifically in the summer months when people book last minute. But quite how late people will book is getting harder to predict with each passing year... if people book at all.

Now that the dust has settled on the summer booking months, we wanted to look at how travellers in the UK were searching in the summer months. Whilst some travel companies saw some positive news out of the late market, did it start online? How were searches panning out? We took a deep dive into the data to find out.

Late travel searches grew overall, but…

Overall searches across our thousand plus travel search index showed an increase in 2025 in total travel search volume of 2.2%. July and August 2025 saw a small increase in searches which was positive to see although this was a smaller increase than the previous YoY period of 5.8%.

Whilst this looks positive again at the top level, the detail paints a more complex picture. Nearly all categories of travel were down, but this was offset (as has been the story of the last few years) by cruise travel searches which increased by 18%. This itself was an incredible jump but made even more so given the huge increase of 25% from the previous year.

This large increase in cruise holiday searches does hide the fact that other types of travel saw less search demand overall. The only other exception was for searches around ‘escorted tours’ phrases which were significantly up this summer, by 300-400% in places. Note, this can sometimes be due to changes in the way Google categorises data and it could be that this is happening here.

It is important to stress that search data is an indicator of interest, not a guarantee of bookings. A rise in search volumes does not mean an equivalent rise in holiday sales, just as a drop in searches does not necessarily mean fewer bookings.

The return of some old faves

Whilst some sectors of travel struggled to get the volumes that they have in previous years, some overseas destinations saw some big increases in searches, indicating they are back on the agenda for some travellers. Malta, Italy and Seychelles all saw double digit increases in searches alongside some literal hotspots such as Ecuador, Fiji, Qatar and Barbados.

UK Lates Summer 2025 – Destinations with notable search growth

These uplifts suggest increased curiosity among UK travellers during the late summer period, though again, this should not be read as a direct reflection of booking numbers.

We need to talk about cruises. Again.

Whilst looking at where in the world travellers are searching for their trips, it seems that no matter where we look, cruise searches continue to dominate. Cruise searches for North America were on the increase by 41% overall this July and August, but when we look into the detail of this, it’s nearly all from increases in cruise searches across the Caribbean. All other areas of the US are largely the same as last summer (3% up) showing that the Trump effect doesn’t seem to have put off travellers from the UK… for now.

Compare that to cruises around the Caribbean which are up 70% overall YoY and it’s easy to see where more and more people want to take a break. Transatlantic cruise searches were up 22%, Galapagos Island cruises up 29% and Caribbean cruises up a staggering 233%. It is possible that, again, Google has grouped some extra data into this particular search phrase as mentioned earlier, but even if it has, it’s still a huge increase.

Summary

For any travel company wanting to hit their passenger numbers this year, summer 2025 is now largely finished. The focus is now looking at bookings for 2026 and making the most of the peak period in the first three months of the year, as well as potentially some deals and offers in ‘cyber month’ to try and get the booking curve coming up earlier than usual.

If you can secure bookings for next year sooner rather than later, you’ll have the chance to build greater confidence in your figures and continue investing. As costs continue to increase on Google and Meta, for those with more diversified audiences - either old or young - it’s worth experimenting with putting budgets into more niche channels such as TikTok on the Gen Z end or with third parties specialising in the ‘silver travel’ market.

At Adido, we create travel marketing strategies for all audiences so if you’re wanting to get some extra brain power on your media plans this year, find out more about Adido here.