Outer Banks still on people’s minds — at least online — during coronavirus, report says
Even during a pandemic, North Carolina’s Outer Banks are still on people’s minds, or at least in their search histories, a report found.
The report, from apartment-search website RENTCafe, found which popular vacation destinations in the United States people are still interested in online amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic based on travel-related search data from Google.
North Carolina’s Outer Banks came out as the No. 1 “most resilient” location, the report found.
Netflix released a show called “Outer Banks” on April 15, which the report did not mention accounting for when analyzing search trends.
The report found the Outer Banks got about 24,700 searches before “lockdown” and about 18,530 during. The 25% decrease was the lowest drop among 20 popular locations included in the report.
Research was based on “12 keyword combinations” related to 960 U.S. destinations from Google Travel Recommendations, the report says. The 20 destinations were then selected from locations that had an average of at least 5,000 monthly searches over the last year.
The report compared searches during March and April to the same time last year to find the change in searches.
Overall, searches for vacation spots nationwide were down 64% compared to last year, the report found.
Small-towns and destinations with open spaces seemed to fare better in search interest than big, crowded cities, according to the report.
Other popular destinations that saw the smallest declines in search interest were Yellowstone National Park and Fairbanks, Alaska, coming in at No. 2 and No. 3, respectively.
The report also broke down its findings into categories: small towns, beach destinations and nature destinations.
The most “resilient” beach location was still the Outer Banks, while Fairbanks took the top spot among small towns and Yellowstone ranked best among nature destinations.
Myrtle Beach, a popular destination in South Carolina, got a special shout out in the report as it was among the most popular beaches last year, with 204,070 searches, and this year, with 70,540. But its “sharp drop” in searches kept it off the “most resilient list.”
Boone, in western North Carolina, also made the list of nature destinations, coming in at No. 10. Searches for the town dropped 54% from this time last year.
