Just as everyone has their own idea of what a Christmas meal looks like, or whether gifts should be unwrapped on Christmas eve or on the morning of Dec 25, not everyone shares the same opinion about the best place to spend the festive season.
Some dream of festive hotspots like Strasbourg, France – with its famous Christmas market- or Rovaniemi in Lapland, Finland, known as the official home of Santa Claus.
However, a new analysis of Google searches looking at where people all around the world want to go for Christmas tells a different story.
The Austrian capital of Vienna ranks as the dream destination for people in the United States, Italy, Poland, Germany, Norway and Finland. Meanwhile, people in Sweden would rather go to Copenhagen. For the Portuguese, Irish and Brazilians, Paris is the ultimate holiday destination, while the French prefer Brussels.
But Christmas isn’t just about cooler climates: Madrid, for example, is the most coveted Christmas travel destination for those in Colombia and Argentina, while those in Thailand and Jordan prefer Tokyo.
Europeans tend to want to stay in Europe for Christmas, favouring places like Vienna and Nuremberg, while many Canadian, American and Australian travellers are happy to travel further afield.
Beyond individual cities, Europe holds sway as the broader global region considered a top choice for Christmas getaways. It is most often cited in this analysis, notably thanks to the popularity of a location you might not immediately think of as being all that festive: London.
People from around the world flock to the UK capital for its Christmas illuminations, ice-skating rinks, cozy pubs, majestic historic sites, and shopping opportunities. Indeed, Covent Garden and Hyde Park are two of the most famous Christmas market destinations.
All in all, London is cited 20 times as the preferred destination among the countries included in this research, compared with 15 times for Vienna. Cited eight times, New York comes third on the list, tied with Paris.
Notably, Malaysia isn’t mentioned altogether. Oh well.