According to Airbnb
Forget the singing and dancing for a second. Imagine that Eurovision worked differently this year, with countries voting for their favourite holiday destinations rather than their favourite performers. Well imagine no longer, Airbnb’s done the math and released how things would shake out with these travel-based predictions ahead of the tonight's semi-final.
The top ten finalists would be as follows:
- France
- Spain
- Italy
- UK
- Australia
- Germany
- Portugal
- Netherlands
- Croatia
- Denmark
These ten nations were the most booked places for the online booking platform between April 2016 -2017, based on where member countries were arranging accommodation internationally. (So as with standard Eurovision rules, nobody got to vote for themselves).
Despite France’s uneven Eurovision track record, they swept these imaginary predictions as Europe (and Australia’s) favourite place to holiday. Spain was hot on their heels and Italy, this year’s favourite to win with an eccentric performance by Francesco Gabbani, came in at a very respectable third place.
Unsurprisingly, these warmer climates were particularly popular with those chilling out further north in Denmark, Norway, Finland and Iceland.
The UK also managed to work their way up the chart at fourth place and according to the research, they were actually Ireland’s second favourite country to visit. Australia, Cyprus and Malta also had a soft spot for the British isles, with the country ranking in at third place for all three nations.
Although Russia won’t actually be competing in this year’s Eurovision after their contestant Julia Samoylova was banned from entering the host country Ukraine, they were still included in these predictions. It didn’t really matter though as it was slim pickings for the country, coming in at an underwhelming 19th place. However they still did better than San Marino, which ranked last out of all the countries on the list.
The full list is below:
- France
- Spain
- Italy
- UK
- Australia
- Germany
- Portugal
- Netherlands
- Croatia
- Denmark
- Greece
- Ireland
- Belgium
- Czech Republic
- Hungary
- Poland
- Austria
- Norway
- Russian Federation
- Switzerland
- Sweden
- Iceland
- Israel
- Finland
- Malta
- Slovenia
- Romania
- Estonia
- Georgia
- Cyprus
- Lithuania
- Bulgaria
- Latvia
- Ukraine
- Montenegro
- Serbia
- Belarus
- Albania
- Macedonia
- Armenia
- Republic of Moldova
- Azerbaijan
- San Marino
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It’s all a bit of fun really and while there’s no knowing who’s really going to sweep the title on May 13’s Grand Final, it’s still exciting to see the UK in the top five. However, former X Factor contestant Lucie Jones could scoop the sixth Eurovision win for the UK with her glamorous starry performance of Never Give Up On You.
The first of the Eurovision 2017 semi-finals was held on May 9, with the second round happening tomorrow on May 11. The Grand Final will be held on Saturday, May 12 and will be broadcast on BBC One at 8pm as well as YouTube.
