A new study sheds light on French employees lacking leave. And the result is not what we think.
Everyone is waiting for them but some are more excited than others. This is about vacations, periods when employees can swap the daily routine for days dedicated to leisure and rest. Weeks with family for some, travel to the other side of the world for others: not all workers take advantage of their paid leave in the same way. The only common denominator: they always look forward to these days.
A new study published by the Icelandic airline Icelandair has asked the question of which regions are most eagerly awaited for vacations. To do this, online searches from different French regions were analyzed. Requests related to stress, fatigue, the need to escape, boredom and the sun made it possible to create a vacation need score. The analysis then evaluates the most suitable type of stay among 4 proposals: rest, adventure, nature and sun.
Let’s start first with the regions that want the most rest during their holidays. Here, one region clearly dominates the others and that is Occitanie with 785 online rest searches per 100,000 inhabitants. This is more than 5 times higher than Île-de-France which comes in second position with 141 requests. Hauts-de-France completes the podium with 97 searches, just ahead of Grand Est (94) and Brittany (92).
Conversely, Corsica displays the lowest number of searches related to rest with 41 queries. Burgundy-Franche-Comté and Normandy close the ranking.
In terms of adventure, Occitanie once again crushes the competition with more than 15,000 searches per 100,000 inhabitants, far ahead of Île-de-France and its 2,740 searches. On the other hand, the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region this time comes in third position ahead of Brittany and New Aquitaine, also seeking adventure. Center-Val-de-Loire and Burgundy-Franche-Comté bring up the rear.
What about “nature” holidays? Never 2 without 3 so it is once again the Occitanie region which crushes the other French regions ahead of Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, Nouvelle-Aquitaine and the PACA region. With 6,232 searches per 100,000 inhabitants, Occitanie has more searches than all other regions combined. Corsica and Hauts-de-France are dead last in this indicator.
Finally, the final criterion, the quest for sunshine. A ranking dominated once again by… Occitanie which is ahead of Corsica. However, the two regions are among the sunniest in France. Brittany and the PACA region are also in the top places in a ranking which sees Centre-Val de Loire and Burgundy-Franche-Comté in the last places. Concretely, the French who have sun every day want to keep it on vacation. Others can do without it.
After analysis of the 4 criteria, place in the general classification and you will have understood, Occitanie is by far the region which needs the most holidays ahead of Corsica and Île-de-France. This is explained by high levels of stress and fatigue according to the study. The top 5 is completed by Brittany and Hauts-de-France, which are very popular with vacationers. Finally, the inhabitants of the PACA region are by far those who need the least vacation.
