the worlds leading hotel booking website, released its latest search trends for July 2010 and figures show a significant increase in the number of searches from Hotels.com’s Indian website for hotels in the country’s smaller cities.

Kochi, home to the beautiful Fort Kochi, tops the search increase on Hotels.com with a 995% increase over July 2009. The state of Kerala finds its other main tourist destination–Munnar, at fourth place in the list with a 970% increase. Other destinations which place in the top 20 are Bhopal, Jalandhar, Ludhiana, Haridwar, Khajuraho, Ahmedabad, Port Blair, Allahabad, Bhubaneshwar, Tirupati and Mathura. Also, at least four of the cities on the list are well known pilgrimage centres, indicating a trend of heightened interest in pilgrimage travel in the last month compared to the same time last year.