BRUSSELS, July 1 — Spain was the most popular travel destination among European residents, and Greeks take the longest vacations. These are among some of the key findings from the latest tourism stats out of the European Commission.

According to the recently released report “Tourism Trips of Europeans” out of the European Union, the majority of trips — 85 per cent — by Europeans in 2012 took place within Europe, and oftentimes in a neighbouring country.

The countries to buck this trend were the UK, whose top travel destination was Spain; Romania, whose top destination was Italy; and Hungary, whose residents flocked to Germany in 2012.

After Europe, the most popular outbound destinations were Asia (5 per cent); Africa (4 per cent); North America (4 per cent) and Central and South America (2 per cent).

Overall, within Europe, Spain was the most popular travel destination in terms of the number of trips, the number of nights spent and expenditure.

After Spain, the most popular destinations were France and Italy.

Meanwhile, the stats also showed that Greeks took the longest vacations in 2012, averaging 7.5 nights compared to Latvia, where residents took the shortest holiday within the EU, averaging about 3 nights.

Here are the top 10 destinations for Europeans in 2012:

1. Spain 2. France 3. Italy 4. Germany 5. Austria 6. United Kingdom 7. Croatia 8. Greece 9. Portugal 10. Poland

— AFP-Relaxnews