It’s all about the beach

Well, the truth is out. Forty-five per cent of Canadians say that they prefer a beach vacation to all other types of vacations — and that puts Canucks far ahead of the global average which was 33%. The findings are part of the newly released 2012 Flip Flop Report that was conducted by Harris Interactive for Expedia.ca and which looked at the behaviour and preferences of over 8,000 adults in North America, South America, Europe, Asia and Australia in a total of 21 countries. Globally, the average beach holiday is just over one week in length at 7.7 days. Canadians inch past the global average length of beach stay and spend an average of 7.8 days on the sunny shores, which puts them well beyond our North American counterparts, with the US and Mexico both at only 5.6 days. Canadians are also much farther ahead of Korean beach-goers who were the shortest at only 3.2 days. On the other hand, Europeans love the beach the most, with Italians spending an average of 10.2 days at the beach, followed closely by the Dutch (10.1 days), the Germans at 9.7 days and finally the French at 9.3 days. Expedia Canada’s vice-president and managing director, Sean Shannon said: “Canadians spend a great deal of their vacation time at the beach û in fact 55% of those surveyed said they planned on taking a beach holiday within the year so being able to offer them the selection to easily customize their dream beach vacation is a top priority for us. To help Canadian sun-seekers find the perfect beach vacation, weÆve created a value-packed summer sale with savings of up to 30% off amazing beach destinations and unrivalled deals on vacation packages.” As for where Canadians would like to go for their beach vacation, 18% chose the Caribbean; 14% picked Hawaii; Australia came in third at 10%; and Europe ranked fourth at 8%.