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Falling air fares spark rise in demand for Greece, Iceland and Italy
Flight searches to the main Greek islands have risen by more than 300% in the past year, according to search engine Kayak.
It said searches for flights to Crete this spring were up 345% on spring 2015. Searches for Corfu were up 238%.
Both islands have re-entered Kayak’s Flight Index Top 50 most searched for destinations.
It said the growing interested had largely been stoked by falling air fares, the average cost of which has dropped 62% to 67% in the past year, to £63 for Crete and £70 to Corfu.
Pisa in Italy has also entered the Index at number 23 after a 55% drop in air fares. Bali entered for the first time at number 36 and Naples was the other new arrival, at number 47.
Kayak said fares had fallen across the board during the second quarter compared with the same three months of last year, with the average price to the 50 most searched for destinations down by 22%.
Reykjavik soared in popularity after average air fares almost halved to £89, pushing the Icelandic capital up 39 places to enter the top five most popular. Prices to Ibiza dropped 58%, sparking a 68% rise in searches.
Milan rocketed up 13 places on the list following a 58% drop in average air fares.
The only three cities where the price increased were Lisbon, which was up 2%, Nice, up 4% and Singapore, up 1%.
New York remained the most searched for travel destination in the second quarter, but Los Angeles and Las Vegas both saw significant falls in searches, meaning they dropped from 7th to 16th and 18th to 30th place respectively.
The Indian cities of Mumbai and New Delhi saw even more significant falls, dropping 22 and 19 places respectively (22 to 44 and 26 to 45). Chicago, Sydney, Munich, Johannesburg and Washington disappeared from the top 50 entirely.
Linsey McNeill
Editor Linsey McNeill has been writing about travel for more than three decades. Bylines include The Times, Telegraph, Observer, Guardian and Which? plus the South China Morning Post. She also shares insider tips on thetraveljournalist.co.uk
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