#ttot #rtw #travel

Anyone who works in digital travel media, travel PR or travel blogging might easily assume that the hashtag #ttot or #travel or #rtw is the most popular travel hashtag on Twitter. But dig a little deeper and you’ll find there are lots of trending travel hashtags, not always the ones you might expect.

Trending Travel Hashtags

What is clear from the research we did in preparing this blog is that lists like these are only ever snapshots of a particular moment in time. Hashtags by their very nature trend momentarily and sometimes disappear altogether.

What we have tried to achieve below is to compile a list of popular travel hashtags that trend consistently, i.e. those that are used daily and weekly. In short we went looking for hashtags that define an industry, that are consistently popular with travel writers, bloggers and travel companies.

Top 10 Travel Hashtags on Twitter

Here’s our list of the top travel hashtags on Twitter (as of September 2015). If you think we have missed any important travel hashtags on Twitter, please do drop us a line – michael@travelmedia.ie or @travelmedia_ie

       #                                  accounts reached

1.    TravelTuesday         1,770,259
2.    tt                                 1,060,888
3.    ttot                             441,773
4.    TBEX                        368,675
5.    LP                             337,938
6.    MexMonday            319,088
7.    BeachThursday      263,385
8.    rtw                             225,397
9.    TravelMassive       190,461
10.  Travel                      171,847

Our analysis

What’s clear from the above list is that the obvious is not always the case. We would have expected #ttot or #travel to have been no 1 in this list. 

If you are serious about using hashtags when posting travel content we’d recommend updating your analysis or research and assumptions on a regular basis.

Next time we do this research we will expand the research to look at exposure/impressions as well as accounts reached. We will also compare tools as well, using both TweetReach and HashTracking to compare and contrast results. We expect the results to be different again to the above list – it’s a moveable feast.

Also worth taking into account is uniqueness of each hashtag. It’s clear what the hashtags #travel #traveltuesday mean but #lp #tni and #tt are likely used outside of the travel context.

The influence of traditional media and travel bloggers is also interesting to note. To see the Lonely Planet hashtag #lp so high up the list shows the traditional media can and has pivoted to embrace social media.

The influence the travel blogging community is very clear in this list, both the travel blogger communities #tbex and #travelmassive rank in the top 10. If you are a tourist board, airline and/or any other travel company and you are not yet actively engaging with travel bloggers you are missing an opportunity.

If you are interested here are positions 11 to 23.

         #                                    accounts reached

11.    rtwnow                        163,793
12.   tni                                  150,000
13.   travelchat                    145,454
14.   travelskills                  119,749
15.   mountainmonday      85,778
16.   twwt                              73,437
17.    trlt                                 58,595
18.   rtwsoon                        54,209
19.   ptba                              51,089
20.  satw                              44,461
21.   tourismchat                41,743
22.   jset                               24,434
23.   tbu                               18,787

A few abbreviations explained.

#TBEX. TBEX is the hashtag for the largest travel bloggers community and conference in the world. The find out more about them check out http://www.tbexcon.com.

#TTOT. Travel Talk on Twitter. The travel community’s biggest Twitter chat, taking place every Tuesday at 9:30 AM/PM GMT. (Use the #TTOT hashtag during the week for your travel tweets)

#TWWT. The Way We Travel.

#TRLT. The Road Less Travelled.

#TBU. Travel Bloggers Unit. A small European base of travel bloggers and conference.

#TRAVELMASSIVE. Once an informal gathering of travel bloggers and travel tech professionals. Now a growing community and network of travel bloggers and travel industry peeps.

#LP. Lonely Planet.

#JSET. Jet Set.

#RTW, also #RTWnow and #RTWsoon

#TT, also known as #TuesdayTravel

#PTBA. Professional Travel Bloggers Association.

#TNI. Traveller’s Night In.

#SATW. Society of American Travel Writers.

Notes.

i) The above list was researched using TweetReach. Lists like the above are ephemeral, they are always changing, depending on the day of the week or year they are conducted.

ii) The above list could easily have been compiled using another Twitter tool, for example HashTracking.