Holidays: Tenerife voted favourite beach holiday by Britons - have you

Tenerife in the Canary Islands off Spain has been named as the favourite beach destination for UK families in a new survey.

A study conducted by beach holiday specialist On the Beach surveyed 1,000 families to identify the most-loved beaches on the continent for Britons.

Tenerife attracts two million British holidaymakers to its shores each year and almost one in five (19 per cent) of the families surveyed chose the island as their overall favourite.

Spain overwhelmingly dominated the list of best, with the sun-kissed island of Majorca coming in second, with the vote of 18 per cent.

The Costa del Sol featured in third place thanks to being backed by 13 per cent of those questioned.

Fourth place was taken by Spain’s neighbour Portugal, with 11 per cent of Britons naming the Algarve as their favourite.

Tenerife’s fellow Canary Island, Gran Canaria, brought Spain back into the top 10 in fifth place.

Other destinations named favourites among British families include Cyprus and Lanzarote (both nine per cent), and Costa Blanca and Ibiza (both eight per cent). Turkey came in at eighth place.

“Spain has been a hot spot for many years and our survey shows that overall, it remains the most popular destination for sun-seeking Brits,” Alan Harding, Marketing Director at On the Beach said of the results.

“The high cost of hotels, train travel and domestic flights make a holiday in the UK extremely expensive, which is why so many of us prefer to head to Europe’s beaches for our week in the sun.”

The survey revealed half of British families believe a one-week holiday abroad is cheaper than a week’s holiday in the UK, with less than one in three saying a holiday abroad costs about the same.

Only 14 per cent of all those surveyed believe a one-week domestic holiday is cheaper than a holiday in a sun-kissed beach resort in Europe.

While the UK has recently experienced an unusually warm summer, the majority of British families (54 per cent) say the main reason they prefer their annual beach summer holiday abroad is because of the guaranteed good weather.

Forty per cent say they prefer to jet off to foreign shores because it’s good for kids to experience different cultures.

Asked to rank the main reasons they choose to holiday abroad, 39 per cent say foreign beaches are better than those in the UK, whilst 34 per cent believe a holiday in one of Europe’s beach resorts offers better value for money.

Other reasons British families choose to holiday abroad rather than in the UK include the variety of things to do and see (31 per cent), better quality hotels (23 per cent) and better service (15 per cent).

The best beaches in the world were also recently revealed, with a beach in Cornwall making it to the top 21 ‘Wow’ beaches.