[title]
The London Eye. Tower Bridge. The bookshop from Notting Hill (and, admittedly, the wider area itself). We could go on and on, but we think you get the point: London is one of the most culture-packed cities in the world, so it’s no wonder so many people want to come and visit.
London is so popular as a holiday destination that it’s almost overdone at this point – key word being almost. According to hospitality company Accor, which knows the worlds of travel and holidaymaking pretty well, London is still very much in for 2025, being the world’s eighth most trending destination, overtaking both Paris and Bali. Sacre bleu.
To figure out where people are headed come the new year, Accor analysed a combination of two years-worth of ‘search data’, a series of survey responses, and thousands of travel blogs and articles from over the last year, did some magical number crunching, and was able to give each city an overall ‘trend’ score out of 100. New York, which was at the top, got 97.58, while London claimed a respectable 92.43, although we did get a perfect ‘100’ in the media category, which means everyone’s talking about us. No surprise there.
There are a few things which could be contributing to London maintaining its reign as the UK’s most popular city. Obviously, it offers a huge amount of things to do for any kind of person from history buffs to theatre-lovers to foodies, and beyond, but Accor noted a couple of current trends in the tourism industry that could be benefitting the capital.
First, more and more people are travelling in hopes of discovering some good scran, and there’s certainly no shortage of that in this city. Also, what they describe as ‘concert-driven travel’ is on the rise, with as many as 32 percent of people now planning trips around music that they want to see – a phenomenon that was in full swing earlier this year when Taylor Swift took over the city for a few weeks in June and August.
If you want to see where else people are booking for 2025, you can have a look here. London is the only UK destination there, so we know once and for all that it actually is the best holiday spot in the country. Sorry, Cornwall. Your time will come.
Good news: Kentish Town tube station finally has an official reopening date.
City Hall is getting ‘modernised’ with plant-covered balconies, shops and restaurants.
Get the latest and greatest from the Big Smoke – from news and reviews to events and trends. Just follow our Time Out London WhatsApp channel.
Stay in the loop: sign up for our free Time Out London newsletter for the best of the city, straight to your inbox