Hungary is top winter destination in region

HUNGARY has knocked Portugal out of the top 10 most popular winter destinations for East Midlanders.

A total of 13,500 people flew between East Midlands Airport and Hungary last December, January and February, making it the 7th most popular place to visit for East Midlanders last winter.

In comparison, 10,337 people flew to Portugal over the same period, meaning the destination has been knocked out of the top 10.

The number of passengers flying to and from Hungary has risen massively in the last year - from 3,062 in the winter of 201617 to 13,500 in 2017-18.

All of those people were travelling to Budapest specifically.

At the same time, the number of people travelling between the East Midlands and Portugal fell by more than 600 passengers.

Portugal’s fall from grace is mainly thanks to a large drop in passengers travelling to and from Porto, which saw no visitors last winter, compared to 1,550 the year before - presumably because you can no longer fly to the airport directly from the East Midlands.

Italy, Spain and France also saw a massive drop in visitors, with the number of passengers falling by around 15,600, 7,700 and 3,100 respectively.

All three areas still make it into the top 10 winter destinations for the East Midlands, however.

The Canary Islands, Poland, Ireland, Latvia, Germany and Malta make up the rest of the top 10, with Ireland seeing the big- gest increase in visitor numbers after Hungary in the last year.

While 63,635 people travelled to and from Ireland from East Midlands Airport in the winter of 2016-17, 65,098 did so last year.

Outside of the top 10, places like Finland, Belgium and the Netherlands are also seeing a surge in popularity, while Switzerland, the Czech Republic and Portugal are falling out of favour.