آئرش موڪلن وارا ماڻهو Casablanca ڏانهن ويندا آهن

DUBLIN – Casablanca has come out top of the new league table for Irish travellers, Hotels.com has revealed in its latest poll of the fastest rising destinations.

The Hotels.com ‘hot list’ has revealed a 496% increase in searches for the Moroccan city on the Irish Hotels.com site in June 2010 compared with June 2009. The monthly league table shows the destinations which are experiencing the biggest growth in searches compared to the same period the year before.

New Dehli was a surprise second on June’s list with searches increasing for the Indian capital by 477% while the town of Locarno, Italy came third with a 443% increase.

Irish holiday destination favourite Playa De Las Americas in Tenerife came in at number nine on the table, while the ever popular Fuerteventura in the Canary Islands ranked 16th.

Surprise entries in the top 20 included Beirut at number 13 with a 365% uplift in searches for the Lebanon capital compared with June of last year. The town of Canterbury in the UK also experienced a surge in popularity ranking 17th overall. Astonishingly there were no US destinations in the top 20 list, although hotels in New York City have always been a perennial favourite with Irish travellers.

Alison Couper, Communications Director at Hotels.com, said: “There were some real surprises in the top 20 list in June with Casablanca coming out on top. The figures indicate that North Africa is becoming increasingly popular with Irish travellers wanting to holiday outside the Eurozone, with both Marrakech and Alexandria in Egypt making the list.”