Hotel Booking Sites Report Rise In Searches For Wakanda After 'Black Panther'
As pretty much anyone who has seen Black Panther will tell you, Wakanda is amazing. The beautiful, [...]
As pretty much anyone who has seen Black Panther will tell you, Wakanda is amazing. The beautiful, technologically-advanced African nation looks like it would be an incredible vacation destination except for one small detail: Wakanda is a fictional place. It doesn't really exist in the real world. However, that hasn't stopped people from trying.
As reported by the Daily Mail, hotel booking sites have reported a rise in searches for Wakanda since the film's release last month. Hotelscan.com has seen a 620 percent increase in people finding the page for Wisconsin Wakanda Water Park while Hotels.com reports that searches for Wakanda Park are up 55 percent year over year. All of the search increases coincide with the release of Black Panther.
But it's not just a water park that's getting searched for. Hotels.com noted that places around the world with similar names to Wakanda have seen increases in traffic as well, specifically Wauconda, Illinois (its name is pronounced the same way as Wakanda). That city has seen a 25 percent increase while Makanda, another town in Illinois saw a 40 percent spike.
While this might seem like a mild annoyance for the site, Isabelle Pinson, Vice President for the Hotels.com brand is taking it in stride.
"Our hotel portfolio spans more than 200 countries and territories around the world but not yet Wakanda," she said. "We're looking into it."
And they might be seeing this elevated interest in Wakanda for the foreseeable future. Black Panther continues to dominate at the box office and is expected to take then number one spot for the fifth weekend in a row this weekend.
Black Panther is now in theaters. Other upcoming Marvel Cinematic Universe movies include Avengers: Infinity War on April 27th, Ant-Man and the Wasp on July 6th, Captain Marvel on March 8, 2019, the fourth Avengers movie on May 3, 2019, the sequel to Spider-Man: Homecoming on July 5, 2019, and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 in 2020.
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