The festive season isn’t complete without a trip to a Christmas market as they always add an extra sprinkle of magic to the festivities. Known for mulled wine, beautiful Christmas trees, roasted chestnuts and unique Christmas decorations there’s something for everyone to explore. And according to a new study, Manchester Christmas Markets is where it’s at, being crowned the best in the UK.
Carried out by Christmas Tree World, the study revealed that Manchester had the most outstanding festive market, describing it as a “must-visit”. Last Christmas, Manchester missed out on the top spot to Edinburgh but this year the famous Northern market has come out on top. Although it’s not the first time we’ve been given the accolade as last year a holiday rental company’s research crowned Manchester the best.
The Christmas tree company collated data on all of the Christmas markets in the UK, comparing their start date, duration, average nightly costs for 3 and 4 star hotel stays, Instagram mentions and monthly Google searches to create an overall Christmas market score. With over 60,000 searches on Google throughout the festive period, and an average of 8,000 mentions on Instagram, Manchester Christmas markets scored an overall score of 7.54. Plus, the great news is that this market can be enjoyed from November for a whopping 40 days.
Not far behind Manchester was Nottingham, ranked the second-best Christmas market in the UK with an overall score of 6.61. Running for 46 days, visitors have plenty of time to experience Nottingham’s 60ft Christmas tree and several of its charming wooden stalls. And if you’re planning on travelling from afar to Nottingham’s festive markets this year, then you can enjoy a night’s stay in one of the city’s 3* hotels costing an average of £89 a night.
Coming in the third for the best Christmas markets in the UK was Leeds, which had over 6,000 searches throughout the festive period on Google, and over 4,000 hashtags on Instagram. However, when it came to the best Christmas markets in Europe, unfortunately there wasn’t a city in the UK that made the list. The top three cities in the European rankings were Wroclaw in Poland, Tallinn in Estonia and Dusseldorf in Germany.