Every November, just as the travel world turns its focus to World Travel Market in London, Grifco PR launches Opodo’s Year in Travel Report. Produced by our long-standing client Opodo, one of Europe’s leading online travel agencies and part of the eDreams ODIGEO group, the report digs into the OTA’s data to give us insights about the year’s most popular destinations as well as a first-look at evolving trends and where the world is planning to travel in the year ahead.
This year’s report highlighted the top-booked and most-searched destinations for 2025 and 2026, and shone light on fast-growing hotspots as well as uncovering emerging trends that are shaping the way we’re exploring the world. Key insights included:
2025
- Global travel searches: London, Paris, New York City lead
- Global bookings: Barcelona, Paris and Palma de Mallorca lead
- Top growth destinations globally: Rio de Janeiro, Santiago, Lima
- Brits’ favourite booked destinations: Amsterdam, Barcelona, Paris
- Brits’ top growth destinations: Bordeaux, Funchal , Seville
2026
- Most searched globally: Bangkok, Tokyo, Paris
- Most booked globally: Bangkok, Paris, Rio de Janeiro
Before the report reaches the headlines, Grifco plays a central role in shaping, analysing, and amplifying its stories. Beginning with a substantial global data set supplied by the Opodo team, we dive deep into identifying stand-out trends across continents as well as pinpointing UK-specific findings we believe likely to resonate with our home media market. Once the strongest narratives are identified, we begin drafting the full report working closely with the client to refine our findings as we go.
Key to making this work, we build in parallel a carefully-curated media strategy.. A big-hitting exclusive is at the core of our approach, and we begin early outreach to journalists and media desks we feel most likely to love the data – aiming to spark meaningful national conversation in top tier outlets. This year, we secured an exclusive with the Daily Mail, reaching a whopping 37,250,000 monthly online visitors In previous years we’ve agreed exclusives with The Independent, Sky News, and The London Standard.
The full release is then distributed, under embargo, to our pre-eminent media and writers, ensuring that they are given early access to insights in preparation for launch day. And, once the exclusive story is live, our team pushes the findings of the report widely to consumer and travel media, following up with personalised outreach with the intention of amplifying interest and coverage.
Following the launch of the report on 4th November, we’ve secured coverage in a wide range of titles including: Time Out, Globetrender, Secret London, Metro, Manchester Evening News, and the London Review, with the total UMV reach to date of 92.5 million readers.
Always a big part of our year, publication of the Year in Travel report requires strategic planning, strong storytelling, and key media relationships. Every year our goal – and, so far, our success – has been to ensure that Opodo’s insight report not only lands but leads the travel news agenda.
