Italy is the most and Romania the least desirable summer holiday destination to Northern Europeans – but the UK comes ahead of much warmer, drier climes

BBC Weather forecasts sunshine and a high of thirty-one degrees Celsius in Athens this weekend, compared to a high of twenty-six degrees in London – potentially one of the hottest days in the southeast of England so far this year. But a new Eurotrack poll by YouGov shows that to Northern Europeans, the UK is still a more desirable summer holiday destination than Greece.

YouGov asked representative samples of seven Northern European countries which are their most and least desirable European holiday destinations, and Italy and Spain steam ahead with average net desirability scores of 24% and 22%, respectively.

The next best countries fall far behind. But France is in third (12%) followed by Portugal (10%) and the UK (9%), which is most popular among the Swedes (22% want to visit most) and least popular to the French (8% want to visit least). Two Mediterranean tourist hotspots, Greece and Cyprus, come away with even lower positive scores, at 6% and 1%, respectively.

No East European countries have a positive desirability score, however, and Romania is by far the least popular destination: on average almost a third (32%) of Northern Europeans single it out as their least favoured spot, and only 1% their most. Previous EuroTrack surveys found that Romania is also viewed as the least hard-working and the least honest nation among the Northern Europeans polled.

The UK has been tipped for a washout summer, and Glastonbury festival has kicked off to a muddy start. Last summer was the wettest for a hundred years, and last month 47% said they expected this summer to be “about the same.”

See the full poll results