Traveling can be a life-changing experience – trying new food, meeting new people, and taking in the local sights. Traveling is all about embracing new experiences, and in the age of social media, travelers turn to social media to share their experiences, good or bad.
We wanted to understand exactly where Americans were planning to travel to this summer, and what they have planned to do and see. To get a clear picture of this, we took the top ten travel destinations from Tripadvisor’s Top Global Destinations List and used our Social Intelligence platform to see which of these 10 travel destinations Americans are talking about visiting this summer – and what they are talking about.
According to our social data, Americans are most excited about spending their summer vacations in Paris – with NYC and London coming in at second and third place. Out of the ten destinations we analyzed, Phuket, Thailand came in last for places American’s would like to travel to this summer.
From our demographics data, we can see words most commonly found in the user’s bios from our social analysis, are travel, world, photos, music, sports, love, fashion, writer, and art.
Now that we know what top cities Americans want to travel to and what our traveler’s interests are, let’s take a look at what American travelers are actually saying about the top travel destinations for summer 2017.
Paris
Paris is most well-known for its world famous Eiffel Tower. So, it’s no surprise Americans have been raving on social media about visiting this colossal landmark and symbol of French civic pride. Paris also has a famous museum called the Palais du Louvre, which is home to the Mona Lisa, and many other iconic works of art. According to our social data from June 1st, 2017 to today, there are a large number of mentions around these two landmarks in Paris.
- Eiffel Tower: 11,128 online mentions
- Louvre: 4,090 online mentions
Social media is essentially the new travel diary – but with a potentially huge audience. It’s become a place to share travel experiences and stories with a like-minded community. Check out the post below from an Instagram user sharing her summer 2017 vacation experiences in Paris.
New York City
New York City is one of the most diverse cities in the world, with many different cultures. The Big Apple is famous for its pizza, theater, yellow taxi cabs, and lots of other things, but probably most well known for Instagram-worthy landmarks like Central Park, The Metropolitan Museum and the Statue of Liberty.
We took a look at how the top three of New York City’s most popular landmarks stacked up against each other on social media since June 1. Is it any surprise Statue of Liberty is #1?
Statue of Liberty: 28,561 online mentions
- Central Park: 26,334 online mentions
- The Met: 17,488 online mentions
Below are posts from an American Instagram user who spends who takes beautiful Instagram photos of the places she visits in New York City.
London
The city of London attracts millions of tourists each year with its iconic landmarks like Big Ben and The London Eye. We took a look at how much Americans were really talking about these impressive landmarks this summer.
- London Eye: 4,295 online mentions
- Big Ben: 1,415 online mentions
Below, we have an avid traveler and Twitter user sharing interesting facts about one of London’s famous landmark the ‘London Eye’. Just one of over 4K online mentions about the “world’s largest Ferris wheel”.
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