Canaries overtake Costa Del Sol as Tenerife knocks Malaga from top spot

Autumn is a shoulder season for many destinations with the summer crowds gone but winter visitors yet to arrive. Flights comparison site Skyscanner.net looks at the flight search trends for October 2010 – which see big changes this month.

For the first time ever since Skyscanner’s Travel Trends began, Malaga has been knocked off its number one position. It was a close call, but the immensely popular Spanish city has been replaced by rival destination Tenerife. Located in the Canary Islands, Tenerife is much further south than Malaga meaning it maintains a pleasant year-round climate, which likely explains its rise in popularity with British travellers as we move into autumn and winter.

In an unprecedented surge, Thailand took the biggest gains within the Top Ten, with searches for flights to Bangkok moving up a massive six places to number four. This is the highest ever position for the Thai capital and a record position for any long haul destination. It seems that the civil unrest earlier this year has done little to impact Thailand’s popularity with British travellers, and the destination has particular appeal with another cold UK winter looming

Dublin and Paris also gained positions; the Irish capital moved up four places, and the French capital rose five.

Top 10 Most Popular Cities
1.    Tenerife [+1]
2.    Malaga [-1]
3.    Alicante [0]
4.    Bangkok [+6]
5.    London [0]
6.    New York [-2]
7.    Amsterdam [+1]
8.    Dublin [+4]
9.    Paris [+5]
10.  Faro [-1]

Highest Climbers

Flights to Australia continue their rise in popularity, with both Sydney and Melbourne rising five places each. However, it was Riga (+17), Oslo (+13), Bucharest (+15) and Kuala Lumpur (+13) that saw the biggest increase in interest during October.

Biggest Fallers

It seems the party is now over in Ibiza, with searches to the Balearic island dropping 33 places in the popularity charts. Other summer spots also felt the chill of the off season with Crete in Greece falling 30 places, Valencia 19 and Naples 16.

Drop Outs

Greece and Spain saw the only drop outs this month, with Menorca, Reus, Corfu and Rhodes, all disappearing from the 100 most popular destinations.

New Entries

The Far East saw a significant increase in interest with Manila in the Philippines straight in at number 80, Tokyo in at number 89 and Beijing in a 92. Colombo in Sri Lanka also entered the Top 100 at number 94.