- Travel bookings beat pre-pandemic numbers at over 17M in May
- Traffic shifted away from desktops with a 2-percentage point
increase in share of mobile web browsing
- Employer (vs job seeker) traffic to job sites hit its peak in
the second week of April at a nearly 300% increase YoY
TEL AVIV, Israel, June 30, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Similarweb
(NYSE: SMWB), a leading digital intelligence company, today
released a report showcasing the impact, across industries, of
COVID-19 recovery in both the U.S. and U.K..
"Our proprietary digital intelligence platform shows clear
indicator signals of the recovery," said Greg Malen, VP of Solutions at Similarweb.
"Across key sectors of the economy — travel, entertainment and
shopping — we are starting to see a return to normal patterns,
often above pre-COVID-19 levels."
Using the time period of January-May as a comparative baseline
for 2020 and 2021, key recovery trends include:
People are searching for work, but employers still lead the
way
Monthly traffic for the top five job sites in both the U.S. and
U.K. increased by 20.2% and 97.5% YoY, respectively. But, through
an analysis of separate URLs for employers and employees as a proxy
for job supply vs. demand, it is evident that employers are
returning to job sites at a faster rate than job seekers.
In the U.S., job employer traffic has had positive YoY growth
since the first week in January, and hit its most recent peak the
second week of April at +299.1%.
U.S. travel bookings hit a new high
The top five OTA/Metasearch sites in the U.S. show a 24.3%
increase in average monthly traffic YoY.
As of May 2021, traffic sits at
302.5M, which is higher than
pre-pandemic levels (268.6M in
January 2020 and 248M in February
2020). Unsurprisingly, the biggest dip in traffic occurred
at the start of the pandemic with a drop of 117.7% between March
and April 2020, from 161.7M to 74.3M.
According to Similarweb's Travel Intelligence, not only are
people browsing travel sites, they are also converting into
customers. US bookings hit 17.01M
this past May, which is higher than pre-pandemic levels of
16.59M in January 2020, and 16.51M in February
2020.
In the U.K., bookings hit 2.782M
this past May — while not higher than pre-pandemic levels, it is
higher than any month YTD, and also 670.6% higher than May 2020.
Traffic shifts back to mobile
With more people stuck at home, traffic share in 2020 shifted
from mobile web browsing to desktop. This year, there is a
2-percentage point shift back to mobile web browsing based on an
index of the top 100 sites in the US.
This 2-percentage point shift in share equates to a 21.4%
increase in volume of mobile web visits (111.836B to 135.818B), compared to a 16.4% increase for the
category as a whole, and a 12.4% increase for desktop
visits.
Face-to-Face fitness
Classpass.com , a popular site used for booking in-person
fitness classes, hit its highest level of traffic since before the
pandemic at 784.7K total visits in
May. This is 113.4% higher than May
2020 at 367.6K.
Data also show that people are interested in details on when
gyms are opening and what options are located in their area —
keywords including "gym openings," "gyms near me," and related
phrases hit their highest volume over the past year in May at
1.854M searches, up 31.5% from
April.
Similarweb's full report on COVID-19 recovery trends is
available here.
All product and company names are trademarks™ or registered®
trademarks of their respective holders. Use of them does not imply
any affiliation with or endorsement by them. Similarweb
insights are estimations and extrapolations based on information
obtained from third parties. Similarweb shall not be held
responsible for the accuracy of or any omissions from its data.
About Similarweb:
As the most trusted platform for understanding online behavior,
millions of people use Similarweb's insights daily to strengthen
their knowledge of the digital world. We empower anyone — from the
curious individual to the enterprise business leader — to make
smarter decisions by understanding why things happen across the
digital ecosystem. Learn more here:
https://www.similarweb.com/corp/about/
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