Greece is the third most popular holiday destination according to a survey of web searches from December 2017 to December 2018, conducted by TravelSupermarket.

The holiday price comparison site also used Google’s Keyword Planner to establish the average monthly search volume in each country or territory for the term “Holidays in…” for over 870 destinations. This was then used to find each country or territory’s favorite destination, then all the favorites were put in a chart to indicate the top favorites. Greece only trailed Italy, Spain and Australia on that chart.

TravelSupermarket found that Greece had an average of 136,540 monthly searches around the world and was the most popular destination for people in seven countries.

Spain was the subject of 229,470 searches per month, just above Italy’s 226,860, largely thanks to the 181,190 searches made in the UK. However, Italy was the most popular destination for people in 97 countries or territories, while Spain was the top preference in 54 countries. France was fourth with 47,670 searches and Australia ranked fifth with 40,420, but Australia was the top preference of eight countries, one more than Greece’s.

The countries that had Greece at the top of their destination keyword search list were North Macedonia, Albania, Mozambique, Tanzania, Afghanistan, Liberia and Tonga.

Greece was the second favorite destination in Austria, Barbados, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Germany, Guernsey and Jersey, Italy, Liechtenstein, the Maldives, Mali, Spain, Turkmenistan and Uganda.

Cyprus was the top destination for holidaymakers in Burundi and the Caribbean Netherlands.

The Greeks’ top choices were Italy and Spain.

Europe is by far the “most desired” holiday destination. Joey Tyson, travel editor at TravelSupermarket, said that “European countries dominated the most Googled holiday destinations globally, with four out of the top five being located on the continent.”

This article was originally published on ekathimerini.com