Press Release: Where's Hot and Where's Not, The Most Popular Destinations in 2018
Latest figures reveal that there has been an increase in Brits visiting Tunisia in 2018, up 537% year on year.
The surprising statistic has been revealed in a new study of data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) which showed that the North African country has seen the biggest increase in visitors from the UK, of any country in the world. In total, 19,000 visits were made by UK residents during the first quarter of 2018. This is despite the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) still advising against travel to certain areas of Tunisia, following the 2015 terrorist attack in Sousse.
According to the study, Finland saw the second biggest increase. 92,000 visits were made in the first part of 2018; an increase of 78%. Followed by Turkey (up 74%), Mexico (up 67%), and Egypt (up 40%).
The research was carried out by Richveintravel.co.uk. The agency discovered that although the total number of visits made by Brits abroad was down to 13.3m for the first quarter of 2018, several destinations in particular saw phenomenal growth.
Other countries that had experienced an increase in visits during the first part of 2018 were Hong Kong (China) - up 39%)), Romania (up 16%) and India (up 13%).
However, in the study of over 191 countries, it was also found that there had been declines for some historically popular destinations. The number of Brits making the 23 hour plus journey to New Zealand has declined by 44% year on year during New Zealand’s busy summer season. This is particularly surprising considering how strong UK tourism was to New Zealand in 2017 where visits for the full year surpassed 2015 and 2016. Equally surprising is the 33% decline in visits to Australia by UK residents during the first part of 2018.
Trips to several European countries also saw a notable decline in trips made by UK residents, with trips to Denmark, Norway and Russia down during the first quarter of 2018.
There were no huge double digit declines across the most visited Western European holiday destinations by Brits. But trips to Spain, consistently the most visited destination by Brits overall, fell by 3% to 2.26m in the first quarter, whilst visits to France fell by 4% to 1.68m.
Anthony Charles, of Richveintravel.co.uk said: “What we discovered by looking into this body of data was that some of the trends that we see when speaking to our clients are evident across the UK.”
“There were some interesting figures – like the 24% decline in 2018 for Barbados during one of the most important seasons for tourism in the Caribbean.”
But we also came across some unexpected results, with Finland tipped to become one of the hottest destinations in the coming years, based on the data to date”