Follow the online trends: camping set for another bumper summer

The sales trend of the last 12 months is starting to sound like an old record. Things came to a standstill in February and March and then boomed later into the spring and summer as people went camping in their droves in almost every country around the world. We saw some of the highest sales and interest in camping equipment ever in 2020, and the pattern looks very likely to continue in 2021 with international travel still largely limited and more people than ever considering a holiday in their tent, caravan, campervan or motorhome.

How do we know this? Well, many manufacturers in the industry are still scrambling like crazy to keep up with demand – both demand they have been unable to fulfil in the last year and new demand. Another key metric is Google search popularity, especially when you consider that more transactions are carried online right now than at in any point in human history (the pandemic has a lot to answer for on that front too).

The Google Trends tool can be a great way to see what a market’s usual search interest trends are like and can help you predict patterns. We know that normally search interest for camping relating products starts to rise in March each year, peaks in the summer and then slowly tapers down through the autumn. This happened in 2020, and with very similar conditions expected in 2021, it could easily happen again – perhaps to an even greater extreme. 

Here we can see the search popularity for the term 'camping' on a global scale, which followed the above pattern in 2020:

Breaking it down further, here are some more specific search terms that show similar patterns, though noticing those subtle differences could be the difference between you and your competitors. 

If you have never used Google Trends before, then it can be a very key tool for calculating and forecasting potential patterns in your market segment. It can also help you determine how to attract more traffic to your brand online by determining which search terms are doing well where in the world. The real key to making it work for you is being able to correlate trends with tangible events so you can pre-empt future peaks of interest. If the patterns in camping are anything like last year, then 2021 should be another one to remember for your business.

All graphs source: Google Trends

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