After a few sunny Bank Holiday weekends, it feels like the summer is finally here. People are starting to look forward to vacations, the end of the school year and longer days. On the Journalist Enquiry Service though, thoughts are starting to turn towards Christmas with the first few requests for seasonal content already coming in. 

Before we look ahead any further, let’s look back at what was trending in May. 

We mentioned in April’s trends piece that ‘gardening’ had become a new keyword and was likely to perform well again, and it did with 4% of all requests featuring it. The improving weather means more people are out in their garden and events like the Chelsea Flower Show have seen more journalists looking to cover this topic. It has also meant a 9% increase in enquiries for the Home & Garden category as well. 

As we mentioned at the start, May was full of long weekends and with half-term as well, there were lots of requests with the keyword ‘holiday’. Just over 3% of the total enquiries featured it and it also meant a big growth for the Travel category, which rose by 21% compared to April. This will likely increase further in the coming months, too. 

The other main key phrase that we saw last month was ‘Father’s Day’, with 3% of all requests containing it. This also coincided with a healthy increase of 13% for the Men’s Interest category as journalists looked primarily for gift guide ideas for dad, as well as days out and experiences. 

Towards the beginning of May, it was Mental Health Awareness Week and this generated a new key phrase with ‘mental health’ appearing in just over 2% of enquiries. It also resulted in a growth of 17% for the Health category, making it the most popular category for the second month in a row.  

The category that has grown the most between April and May though is Construction & Property, which increased by 28%, with Personal Finance not far behind on 27%. This is largely due to mortgage rates increasing which has seen ‘mortgage’ as a keyword in 1% of all requests. Ongoing concern from the public around the cost-of-living crisis means ‘cost of living’ as a key phrase was in just over 1% of the total requests. 

There were a couple of new keywords with ‘Pride’ and ‘LGBTQ’ cropping up in 1% of the total enquiries. June is Pride month so we would expect this to increase. Plus, ‘cocktail’ and ‘BBQ’ also both appeared in just under 1% of the requests in May. This also saw a 12% rise for the Food & Drink category, too. 

Overall, staff journalists remain the biggest sender type on the Journalist Enquiry Service with 52% of requests last month coming from them. Freelance journalists were second on 31%. In terms of media type, the majority came from consumer media on 36%. National newspaper/current affairs was second on 26%, with trade/business/professional media third on 19%. Despite this though, eight of the top ten outlets were from national press in May.  

June will see the final few requests for Father’s Day (18^th June) but with Men’s Health Week (14^th – 20^th June), the Men’s Interest category should perform well again. Travel and Home & Garden should continue to grow too with more requests around the keywords of ‘holidays’ and ‘gardening’. 

This month sees us move into the start of the music festival season with Download (8^th – 11^th June) and Glastonbury (21^st – 25^th June). ‘Festival’ could therefore be a new keyword and the Arts & Entertainment category should increase too. We also have World Gin Day (10^th June) to look forward to (if that’s your kind of thing) and Clean Air Day (17^th June) could help the Environment & Nature category to grow. 

Want to get information on the must-have products for Glastonbury or a summer holiday in Greece? Send a request on the Journalist Enquiry Service here and get what you need.