Summer’s top destinations: Greece soars in popularity while France and Portugal slip

Greece has soared in its summer appeal to British visitors, while France and Portugal have slipped down the league table of European sunspots.

As the peak season comes to an end, The Independent has analysed the latest passenger data from the Civil Aviation Authority – for July 2022 – to get a snapshot of which countries are doing well in attracting British holidaymakers, and which are falling behind.

Among traditional Mediterranean destinations, Spain is the clear winner, with 3.55 million passengers flying to and from UK airports. The nation has been the favourite overseas destination for British holidaymakers for decades.

But second place goes to Greece, with 1.33 million arrivals and departures. In the holiday league table, Greece is typically fourth behind Spain, France and Italy.

Noel Josephides, chairman of Sunvil Holidays, said: “Greece handled the pandemic far better than anyone else and were welcoming and were prepared to stay open when others were not.

“When we were given the go-ahead for overseas travel in May 2021 by the UK government, we already had good bookings for summer 2021 and the demand continued.

“Those who could not travel in 2021 because the summer quickly became fully booked, then booked for 2022.

“The demand has happily continued unabated with September and even early October booking strongly.”

In July, no European nation other than Spain or Greece reached a million airline passengers to and from the UK.

Italy saw 979,702 departures and arrival, with Turkey just behind at 930,915.

France is usually the second-most popular destination for UK travellers overall, but in terms of flights it takes fifth place: 809,476 people flew to or from the nation. However, many more British holidaymakers cross the Channel by sea or rail to France.

The table of airline passenger numbers is very different from the pre-Covid figures for European holidays taken using any means of transport, with Portugal slipping to sixth place.

There were 734,595 arrivals and departures from Portuguese airports (including Madeira and the Azores). The figure is slightly lower than the total for Spain’s Canary Islands.

After the first half-dozen destinations from the UK, there is then a very large gap before Cyprus (306,010) and Croatia (248,225)

Completing the European top 10: Bulgaria (161,863) and Malta (101,851).

None of the most popular North African nations – Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia – reached 100,000 British visitors in July 2022, with Tunisia achieving only 0.9 per cent of the numbers heading from the UK to Spain.

Paul Charles, chief executive of the travel consultancy The PC Agency, said: “It’s encouraging to see millions of people having the confidence to travel again after pandemic lockdowns, despite hundreds of flight cancellations.

“What’s also clear is that short-haul destinations have benefited strongly this summer from continuing restrictions in so many long-haul regions.

“This may be a trend we see for some years, where consumers choose to travel closer to home, perhaps for cost, health or environmental reasons.”

Beyond European and the Mediterranean, the US saw by far the most travellers: 1.78 million, almost exactly half the number going to Spain.

Last week the pan-European air-navigation organisation, Eurocontrol, said summer flights to, from and within the UK are down one-sixth compared with 2019.

London Heathrow, for decades the busiest in Europe, has slipped to fifth place – behind Istanbul, Paris, Amsterdam and Frankfurt.

Top five for flights in July 2022, with Office for National Statistics (ONS) figures for overall travel from the UK 2019 in brackets:

Sources: Civil Aviation Authority, ONS

Southern Europe/North Africa passenger numbers to/from the UK in July 2022

Source: Civil Aviation Authority