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Summer holidays: Why travellers are swapping the Riviera for the Balkans

Many tend to think of France, Greece, Italy and Spain when booking their ideal European summer destination. But new figures suggest there's a new country on the scene.

READ MORE : http://www.euronews.com/2026/04/06/summer-holidays-why-travellers-are-swapping-the-riviera-for-the-balkans

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00:00What's the most popular holiday destination in Europe?
00:07Europe is packed with dream holiday destinations and year after year it's the usual suspects
00:13leading the charge. France, Italy, Spain and Greece. But there's one region in the Balkans
00:18that's crashing the party and fast. In summer 2025 it clocked the highest number of hotel
00:24bookings of any region in the EU, 34 million nights reserved across Airbnb, Booking and Expedia.
00:32It's Croatia's Adriatic coast, a long sun-drenched playground dotted with gems like Dubrovnik and
00:39Rovinia, but the rest of the regional top 10 is a Franco-Spanish duopoly, Andalusia, Provence,
00:46the Valencian community, Catalonia, Occitanie, Nouvelle-Aquitaine, the Paris region and Auvergne,
00:52Rhône-Alpes. The Greek region of Crete and the Aegean islands were the only exception.
00:57There's also a slight leaderboard reshuffle at the country level. France takes gold with 108
01:03million nights booked in summer 2025, while Spain claims silver with 91 million, followed by Italy
01:10at 75 million. Looking at 2025 as a whole, tourists spent around 950 million nights in short-stay
01:19the accommodations booked online, marking an 11% increase from 2024 and a 32% jump from 2023.
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