Peter Mohn, owner and CEO at m1nd-set, commented: “The B1S and m1nd-set methodology enables brands and retailers to see where the key destinations will be in the peak travel months, who will be travelling there and the shopper behaviour of the key nationalities for each destination.

“Spanish destinations will again top the charts, with four cities in the top-five destinations for this summer, the other being Amsterdam, which will be the second most visited European airport by Europeans this summer.”

He added: “The touch-points with which to engage travellers is a much sought after element of our studies and how these influence the purchasing decision. Europeans tend to interact with store staff considerably less than travellers from other world regions, Asia in particular, but for those who do, staff engagement generally tends to positively influence the purchase decision.”

Clara Perez, Travel Retail Research Director at m1nd-set remarked: “The report again reveals the importance of cultural and retail experiences for today’s international traveller. Over half of European travellers state that the in-store experience is a clear purchase driver for them.

“This has prompted us at m1nd-set to work closer with partners within the industry and demonstrate through our studies the importance of generating and curating unique retail experiences.

“We see that engaging, exciting and entertaining customers more in-store can have a significant impact on the awareness of a brand, duty free shop or airport thanks, for the most part, to the viral nature of the user-generated content and story telling that is created by the consumers themselves.”

Poland (+15%), Germany (+12%) and Switzerland (+10%) are set to see increased European travellers in the next year.