During the same months in the year prior (Nov 2012 to March 2013), the EU countries mentioned above experienced only a 10% drop in travel interest.
Since Russian-Ukrainian tensions began flooding the news in November 2013, travel interest has dropped 63% among U.S. users on hotel search trivago.com. A similar pattern is observed in Europe -interest is down 49% among travelers in Germany, UK, France, Spain and Italy (the highest traffic EU countries on trivago).
During the same months in the year prior (Nov 2012 to March 2013), the EU countries mentioned above experienced only a 10% drop in travel interest, suggesting that the 49% we see this year is not highly attributable to seasonality and moreover, that Ukraine’s current political instability has discouraged many people from traveling to the Eastern European nation.
As visible in the graph below, when protests began in Ukraine in November, there was a spike in travel interest to Ukraine for both U.S. users (by 6%) and EU users (by 24%) on trivago from the month prior, perhaps suggesting an initial pique in curiosity about the country and travel to it, which quickly died down as the political situation intensified in the following months.
Travel interest percentage change represents the difference between the proportion of searches made to Ukraine (of all destinations worldwide) in November 2013 and March 2014.
Photo caption: Kiev,Ukraine.
Vicky is the co-founder of TravelDailyNews Media Network where she is the Editor-in Chief. She is also responsible for the daily operation and the financial policy. She holds a Bachelor's degree in Tourism Business Administration from the Technical University of Athens and a Master in Business Administration (MBA) from the University of Wales.
She has many years of both academic and industrial experience within the travel industry. She has written/edited numerous articles in various tourism magazines.
