Coolcations are here to stay - Top Travel Destination

This week it isn't about a destination at all, it's about a number.

35,000.

That's the number of people who died from heat across Europe this summer.

Not this century, this summer.

And here's the part that should really stop you dead in your seat.

This figure comes from barely half the continent.

Eastern Europe hasn't even been counted yet.

I don't say this to frighten you off booking a holiday.

I say it because it explains something I've been noticing for a couple of years now on my own travels and in the interaction I get with listeners and fellow travellers.

The way we holiday is changing, quietly but unmistakably, and I want to spend the next few minutes telling you exactly how.

Number one, the coolcation is real.

There's a word doing the rounds now, coolcation.

Ugly word, really.

But it's a trend.

It means exactly what it sounds like.

People deliberately choosing somewhere cooler over somewhere hotter.

Coolcation instead of vacation.

And the numbers back it up.

While Spain and France are still technically the most visited countries on earth, it's Finland, Norway, Poland, Iceland posting double-digit growth in visitor number this year.

Double-digit! That's not a blip.

That's a sort of a migration.

I'll be honest with you.

20 years ago, if you told me people would choose Helsinki over the Amalfi Coast in July, I'd have laughed.

Nobody's laughing now.