One in 10 Brits would prefer a holiday in the UK over Sydney, St. Lucia, or Cyprus, new research by Hitachi Personal Finance has found.

The personal loan provider asked 1,000 UK adults to choose where they would most like to own a holiday home from a list of international destinations, with the UK being the most preferred location at 9%, followed by Sydney and St Lucia joint second and Paphos, Cyprus in third.

This is despite the fact that 7% of respondents think that holiday rentals in Sydney or Paris would make them the most money.

These results follow recent research which revealed that a holiday home was seen as the biggest ‘status symbol’ for Brits, with over a third of people aspiring to own one themselves.

In terms of the most profitable location to own a holiday home, Sydney and Paris was the first pick with 7.3%, closely followed by St. Lucia (6.6%) and Dubai (6%). However, Santorini in Greece was revealed to be the biggest earner out of the list of popular places, according to property and finance expert Simon Conn.

In fact, Sydney and Paris just about scraped the top 10 – coming 10th and 12th respectively – out of a list of 30 international cities.

The UK came third in the list, aligning with recent statistics from Visit Britain that holidays in England brought in roughly £11 billion from trip-related spends last year.

Using data from AirDNA, Hitachi Personal Finance created a map to highlight the most profitable locations in a bid to help potential second-home buyers choose the right destination. Bath came out on top (£2,221), followed by Oxford (£2,066), Brighton and Hove (£2,061), London (£1,951) and Cambridge (£1,847).

Making up the rest of the top 10 was Edinburgh (£1,844), York (£1,835), Inverness (£1,778), Windsor (£1,729) and Bristol (£1,509).

Conn shared some advice for those hoping to find their dream home outside of the UK: “Never sign up for a property that you have not visited, as your dream home may actually be situated next to a motorway, an airfield or a rubbish dump.”

“Also, consider employing a managing agent to look after the property if it is a long way from your home, as there will always be someone to help you in the case of an emergency.”

Vincent Reboul, managing director at Hitachi Personal Finance, said while a holiday home can seem like an attractive investment, the turbulence in global markets can make it hard to identify where is the best place to invest, which could explain the surge in popularity of UK holiday lets and staycations.

He added: “We created the map for people who are starting out their journey of investing in a holiday home, to help point them in the right direction.”