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Flight-comparison site Jetcost looked at data from 2019 to see whch cities residents of the United Kingdom, Spain, Germany and France (25% each) searched for when contemplating a visit to the United States.

The Europe-based company also asked 2,500 travelers from each of the same countries, who had all visited the U.S. previously, what their thoughts were about their experiences there.

Here’s what they found out:

The City Searches

There were a lot of similarities between the citizens of each of the four countries in relation to the travel destinations they searched for. In order of which ones they searched for most, the results were:

United Kingdom: New York (location apparently not specified), Orlando, New York JFK, Los Angeles, Las Vegas

Spain: New York, Miami, Los Angeles, New York JFK, San Francisco

Germany: New York, Miami, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Las Vegas

France: New York, Los Angeles, Miami, San Francisco and New York JFK

I don’t think anyone would be surprised that such large cities would be what the Europeans were looking for, the same as I would suspect, the top hits for each of those cities would be, respectfully, London, Barcelona, Berlin and Paris 😉 From an Orlando resident’s POV, I am not AT ALL surprised that Orlando was listed as #2 for UK citizens. 😉

The Opinions

The 2,500 from each country were also asked about their favorite and least favorite things about visiting the U.S.

Favorite:

UK: sightseeing (36%), food (28%), music and sporting events (23%)

Spain: sightseeing (28%)

Germany: culture (29%)

France: food (38%)

Least Favorite:

UK: the people (30%), price (26%), number of other tourists (22%)

Spain: overcrowding

Germany: the people

France: the people

The respondents were also asked if they would visit again. 39% of the UK residents said that they wouldn’t, even though 71% of them admitted they had a good time there. When asked why they wouldn’t come back, the most popular response was because ‘the costs are too high’ (44%).

I found the “least favorite” responses to be, well, not surprising. The Europeans’ most frequently searched destination was New York, and New York is the most visited city in the U.S. So I’d suspect a lot of those people from the UK, Spain, Germany and France visited the Big Apple. Even Americans voted NYC as being the rudest city in the country (although I’ll admit that the results of that survey were skewed – the sampling was too small and I have no doubt that stereotyping accounted for at least part of the results). Heck, as a former NYer for 35 years, I’ll admit that we can be a little gruff sometimes. I suspect if they had gone to, say, Alabama, Hawaii or Wisconsin, they would have found people to be nicer 😉

Anyway, a spokesperson for Jetcost said:

“There are so many places in the United States that are on peoples’ bucket lists, and it’s not that surprising that New York was the most searched for destination from all the countries in the study. It was interesting to see the differences in opinion from Europeans, and what they liked the most and the least about visiting America – but it’s worth remembering that there are 50 states in America and each one varies greatly, offering many different things and appealing to many different people.”

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This post first appeared on Your Mileage May Vary