SEATTLE, Nov. 12, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- In time for the holidays, today Hotwire.com® announced the top travel and leisure emoji used state by state. From the ever popular "tent" in Wyoming to "snowflakes" in Montana and Alaska and "tropical drink" in Hawaii, the data offers a fun, industry-wide read that shows consumers across the country are feeling optimistic leading up to the peak holiday travel season.
"Since holiday travel gets such a bad rap, we are thrilled to see so many travelers enjoying their travel experiences leading up to the busy holiday season," says Hotwire® Travel Editor Carrie Peters. "We've known all along that travel experiences increase happiness, and now there are almost 600,000 travel emojis available to bring that idea to life."
According to researchers at Cornell University, that optimism around travel experiences isn't surprising. They say that experiential purchases (money spent on doing) tend to provide more enduring happiness than material purchases (money spent on having). As such, people derive more pleasure from the anticipation of experiential purchases and looking forward to an experience tends to be more exciting than waiting to receive a material good.
"Just the act of booking a trip and the anticipation leading up to the trip can make travelers happier in the long run," Peters says.
Other findings in the Hotwire study showed:
- Vermont is the top beer drinking state, and Wisconsin the top wine drinking state. Connecticut loves cocktails.
- No surprise, travelers just can't get enough of Nevada. However, depending on how they're doing on the "slot machine," they tended to use either a "crying smiling face" or a "crying sad face."
- Tennesseans use the most emoji per tweet, averaging 2.08 emoji per tweet.
- Top states for sports: "Football" in South Dakota, "baseball" in Missouri, "basketball" in North Dakota.
- There's still time for leaf peeping before winter officially set in, and New Hampshire tweets "maple leaves" more than any other state.
- Florida is the most likely to fly – airplanes appeared in more Florida tweets than any other state.
- Travel to Louisiana to fall in love: tweets from Louisiana had the most smiling faces with heart eyes.
- Kansas loves America; they tweet our flag more than any other state
- Maryland spends the most time in their car, tweeting about their "cars" the most.
- Looking to go camping? Go to Wyoming, where they tweet "tent" the most.
- Want to enjoy a Pina Colada? No surprise that you're most likely to find a "tropical drink" in Hawaii.
For more details on the survey findings, see the attached infographic or contact Hotwire.
About Hotwire
Hotwire.com is a leading discount travel site with low rates on airline tickets, hotel rooms, rental cars and vacation packages. Launched in 2000, Hotwire, Inc. obtains deep discounts from its travel suppliers to help travelers book unsold airline seats, hotel rooms and rental cars. Hotwire.com is an award winning website and Hotwire, Inc. is an operating company within Expedia, Inc. For more information, visit http://www.hotwire.com. In addition to Hotwire.com, Hotwire, Inc. also operates www.carrentals.com.
©2015 Hotwire, Inc. All rights reserved. Hotwire, Hotwire.com and the Hotwire logo are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Hotwire, Inc. in the U.S. and/or other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. CST # 2053390-40.
"Twemoji" by Twitter, Inc. and other contributors is licensed under CC BY 4.0
Contacts:
Anita Lavine, Porter Novelli for Hotwire
Anita.lavine@porternovelli.com
206-770-7075
Carrie Peters, Hotwire
carpeters@hotwire.com
425-679-7776
Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20151111/286574
SOURCE Hotwire.com