Where did everybody go this Thanksgiving – and where to next?

Immensely popular search engine and fare aggregator Kayak.com’s analysis of travel search data is perhaps shedding some light on upcoming travel trends for the 2010 winter travel season.

Kayak.com has just released a post-Thanksgiving Holiday breakdown of the latest travel trends. Are great deals hidden between the lines?

Immensely popular search engine and fare aggregator Kayak.com’s analysis of travel search data is perhaps shedding some light on upcoming travel trends for the 2010 winter travel season.

According to the site, people searched for holiday-travel flights well in advance, with 77% of searches taking place at least an entire month prior to Thanksgiving. Only 3% waited until the last minute (one week before).

“While we received a number of inquiries before Thanksgiving regarding last minute travel, only a small percentage of people waited until the last minute,” said Giorgos Zacharia, KAYAK’s Chief Scientist. “Since most people seem to book far in advance, we began looking at trends for travel this winter, and there seem to be some good deals.”

The trends data is based on flight and hotel searches made on Kayak’s network of sites (kayak.com, sidestep.com, travelpost.com, kayak.co.uk, other local market KAYAK-branded sites and KAYAK-affiliate sites) over the past 12 months.

Hitting the slopes takes a downward spiral

Popular Colorado ski destinations Denver and Apsen are a both offering some great rates for winter travelers, with airfare to Denver at an 8% drop over last year and hotel rates at a nearly 24% dip. Aspen’s numbers are looking even better, though, with airfare bottoming out at -21% and hotels at -35%.

Other great budget-conscious ski destinations include both Reno and Calgary, each seeing some dramatic cost reductions.

Prices dropping at popular beach destinations

Fare prices to Hawaii have dropped for the winter holiday season, with airfare at a good 2 percent less than last year, while hotels have dropped by nearly 20 percent.

Visitors to Cancun may be able to save a bundle, with airfare down by just over 30 percent and hotels averaging at around 13 percent less than last year.

Across the pond, bring an extra wallet

Although hotel rates are largely down in popular tourist cities like London, Paris and Barcelona (-28%, -26% and -17%, respectively), airfare prices are slightly up – due largely to the fallen value of the American dollar as well as slowly-creeping-upward oil prices.

Kayak.com provides access to its travel search data at kayak.com/trends for nearly any commercial airport in the world and for hotels in hundreds of the most searched destinations.

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Cancun, destinations, flights, Hotels, Kayak, London, Paris, travelers, trends