Using Google Trends in International Tourism: A Case Study of the Czech and Slovak Republics

Abstract

This paper deals with using Google Trends in International Tourism. The attention will be focused on analysing the behaviour of Czech and Slovak tourists travelling to seaside resorts between the years 2010–2019. This paper aims to determine whether there is a connection between the data from the official statistics where Czech and Slovak tourists went and what they were searching on Google Search. The authors also compare the Google Trends analysis with the statistical data for Czech and Slovak tourists travelling to seaside resorts. The paper uses the data from 2010 related to the popularity of Czech and Slovak destinations; the data from 2019 to December is not available yet. This paper will also provide detailed statistical reports using the Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient. It is very important to mention that this article focuses only on the Google Trends analysis for the travelling category. Destination selection is a complex process that is influenced by many factors. Google Trends is a useful tool for a prediction about travelling to seaside resorts, but that does not always accurately reflect the popularity of a destination compared to statistics.