Web searches for restaurant vouchers increase 226%

18th August 2009, 2:53pm

New figures from internet usage analysts, Hitwise, have shown that restaurants in the UK have hugely benefited from the increasing number of consumers searching for online money-off vouchers.

After retail, the restaurant industry is the sector that has benefited most from the growth in online vouchers over the last 12 months.

UK internet searches for restaurant vouchers have increased by 226.3% over the last 12 months, and restaurant vouchers – particularly pizza restaurants – dominated the list of the top 10 voucher related searches.

Overall, searches for discount vouchers have increased by 47.5% over the last 12 months.

The term 'pizza express voucher' was the second most searched for voucher term over the period, and the most popular branded voucher search.

Three further restaurant-related voucher searches were also included in the top 10: 'restaurant vouchers', 'pizza hut vouchers', and 'dominos vouchers'.

The only other company to have a branded voucher in the top 10 aside from the restaurants was Tesco.

Robin Goad, research director wrote in his blog for Hitwise UK: "British restaurants, particularly the chains, have really taken advantage of discount vouchers to help them attract customers that might otherwise be cutting back their spending on eating out. 

"Looking at the popularity of the searches for pizza restaurant vouchers in our data makes me wonder whether anyone has actually paid full price for a pizza in the UK this year!"

Related Articles:

• 02 Oct 2009 - Restaurants must start to wean customers off discount vouchers
• 30 Sep 2009 - Restaurant vouchers are impacting on net margins, says Clapham House
• 29 Jul 2009 - US tourists waste money when eating out in the UK
• 06 Jul 2009 - Posh nosh falls victim to voucher discounts

Click here to submit a comment!

Have your say!

To comment on this article, simply enter your name and email and send us your views. Please note that your comment will appear publicly below this article once it has been processed. For enquiries please email info@eatoutmagazine.co.uk.