Tourism: what are the new criteria for choosing Europeans for a holiday destination

Europeans’ favorite holiday season, that is, summer, is giving them a hard time this year, as the pandemic has set new criteria and frameworks for choosing.

As research by the European Travel Commission shows, more and more people are looking for destinations where there are “less people”. Good weather conditions and the attractiveness of the offer (landscape, comfort, price, etc.) are the dominant criteria that Europeans attribute to their three priorities, along with “lack of pandemonium”.

It’s actually impressive that this criterion has risen one position, from fourth to third this year, in the question “what criteria will play the most important role in choosing your next destination,” which has been added to the survey since 2022. “I think, this is due to the habits we have acquired during the three years of the pandemicto get off the beaten path and find out how comfortable and exciting it is to discover new places,” says Luis Araujo (President of Turismo de Portugal and European Travel Commission).

Have as much as possible free space around oneself was important for almost a third of European travelers. However, one thing that has returned to pre-pandemic standards is travel cost criteria. Falling real household incomes and holiday budgets signal the end of “mad craving for travel”, a phenomenon that followed the lifting of measures to combat coronavirus, quarantine.

According to the latest ETC report, more than two-thirds of respondents plan to take a break in the spring and early summer, and not wait for the “peak month” – August. Survey data collected in March 2023 on 10 major European markets including Germany, UK, France, Italy and Spain. Despite the reputation of Europeans usually taking the whole of August, the data does not confirm this, with the exception of 2022, when Europeans, after the end of the pandemic season, tended to take holidays for the whole summer, even during peak months.

This year, those numbers are down by almost a tenth, according to the ETC report. At the same time, more than two-thirds of respondents said they plan to spend their holidays in the spring or early summer. “We are returning to the previous intra-European model, namely to travel in the middle and low season,” commented the head of the committee.

Concerning interest in traveling to places with as few people as possiblethe committee believes that this trend is likely to continue and even intensify.

Another change in the list of criteria by which Europeans choose a destination is the weather: 7% of respondents said they account for extreme weather events. Thus, for the first time, climate change seems to have begun to influence people’s decision-making about upcoming trips.

The devastating heat wave of summer 2022 has forced Europeans to rethink their destinations, with more people heading towards the northern coast of the continent and traveling in April, May, September and October. This is the verdict of the commission, made on the basis of a survey.

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