Taboola has reported a huge spike in Australians seeking out travel-related content following the reopening of international and domestic borders.
Between January and February 2022, the company saw more than 4.5 million page views for travel and tourism-related topics, which was an increase of 124% on the previous 45 days.
This search for such content did begin to fall away moving into April, as people settled into the new normal.
Unsurprisingly, across Taboola’s network, travel content page views skyrocketed since 21 January, particularly around the time of premier Mark McGowan’s announcement of Western Australia’s borders reopening.
Page views for tourism-related content reached a peak in the first week of February, with people online specifically looking for information around who will be allowed to travel, and related restrictions for tourists related to vaccinations.
Vaccination related articles also saw a major increase throughout December and January as Australians sought out information around restrictions and requirements for both domestic and international travel. This spiked again during April with a string of media reports about vaccine mandates in Western Australia.
Views for airport-related content had a significant spike through early and mid April with an 82% increase in page views across Taboola’s network on the previous 45 days.
This coincided with increased news reports about airports across the country struggling to cope with passenger influx, coupled with staff shortages associated with COVID and isolating procedures in the lead up to the Easter break.
The travel and tourism insights report from Taboola Newsroom uses AI and the largest dataset on the open web to provide unique insights into a range of trending topic areas.
Earlier this year, Taboola announced it is adding artificial intelligence (A.I.) to help power editorial recommendation on it publisher platform.
“Homepage For You” is a new capability that will help editors power their homepages, most visited and prominent section of their website to capture the attention of their readers by using the company’s advanced A.I. and recommendation platform, which is currently being used by more than 9,000 publishers around the world.
It will add to editors’ ability to own and curate their homepage experiences with a new A.I. layer that brings up content readers may find more relevant and personalised to their interests.