Holiday search engine sees Europeans flocking to UK for summer holidays

London, Manchester, Liverpool and Birmingham are amongst the top bookings for European holidaymakers this summer according to Hotel and Flight search engine, Jetcost UK which has seen a 250% increase in searches for flights to the UK and a 330% increase in hotels for the first seven months of 2022.

According to the data, searches for UK holidays in August already exceed the same period in 2019 (the last pre-pandemic year) by over 30%.

Germans, Spanish, French, Italians, Dutch and Portuguese tourists favour the UK’s capital London as their first choice whilst Manchester was second, particularly for Portuguese visitors.

Away from the capital the North West has several cities at the top of Europeans’ searches with Manchester being the second most wanted city in the UK for the Portuguese tourists, third for the Germans, French and Dutch and fourth for the Spanish and Italians. Liverpool and Blackpool also ranked highly.

In the midlands, Birmingham and Nottingham were most favoured by Spanish, French, Italians, Dutch and Portuguese tourists with Germans the only ones not have both in their top 10.

Bristol led the way for the South West being the fifth most popular destination in the UK for the Spanish and Italians, seventh for the Germans and French and eighth for the Dutch. In addition, Newquay came in as the sixth favourite city of the Germans and the twelfth of the Portuguese.

Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland all had their capital cities searched for by Europeans with Edinburgh. Cardiff and Belfast were particularly popular with Germans and Italians.

Ignazio Ciarmoli, Jetcost’s Marketing Director, said: “Normality is here and with it comes the millions of tourists who visited every summer before the pandemic. UK´s cities remain major global tourist destinations, with their cultural richness, attractions, coastline and landscapes, popular traditions, castles, churches and monuments, and good hotels and infrastructures continuing to attract a big number of tourists. On the other hand, many Britons have also chosen national cities for their holidays, in addition to the main European cities and Spanish sun and beach destinations, where their good prices, rich gastronomy and nightlife continue attracting UK tourists”.

Top 5 UK Cities by Nation