PARIS, July 3 — With the Euro 2016 soccer tournament in full swing in France, a new AirBnb study, carried out by YouGov, shows that travellers are increasingly keen to organise upcoming getaways around sporting events.
Europeans, it seems, are champion sports fans. Half of the British, French and German travellers surveyed were interested in sports results, a passion that leads some to kill two birds with one stone by planning holidays in destinations where they can take in a fixture.
In fact, 20 per cent of French and 25 per cent of British people surveyed did just that, while 34 per cent of Germans said they made the most of a trip to catch a local sports event. The 2016 UEFA European Championship soccer tournament has no doubt drawn its fair share of foreign supporters to France, making the most of the tournament to discover host cities like Lyon, Lille, Marseille and Nice.
The study found that following a favourite team has become a way of planning holidays for many travellers. Younger Europeans, aged under 44, were the most likely to book sports-related getaways, with the British leading the way (77 per ent). Plus, when heading on sporting getaways, 27 per cent of French travellers said they looked to book an apartment rather than a hotel to be closer to the local population.
The YouGov poll surveyed 6,276 people, with 33 per cent in the UK, 33 per cent in France and 33 per cent in Germany, or 2,071 people per country. — AFP-Relaxnews
