London – FremantleMedia announce seven new commissions for the award-winning reality format, My First Holiday, which is based on a home-grown idea from FremantleMedia Belgium. This heart-warming series was first sold to Finland and has not only been recommissioned for a second season by the Finnish channel Jim / Nelonen Media, but is also being produced by FremantleMedia for RTVCM (Spain), TTV (Poland), VRT (Flanders) and RTBF (French-speaking Belgium) and by No Pictures Please for RTL 5 (The Netherlands). Additionally, it was licensed to JOJ (Slovakia).

As well as the new commissions, My First Holiday was the cause of celebration having recently won the distinguished Format Finlandia Award and was said to have ‘brought a fresh point of view to travel formats’ by the judges.

Chris O’Dell, Head of Global Entertainment Production at FremantleMedia, comments: “The key to the success of My First Holiday lies in its authentic and unfiltered look at the world. It’s rated incredibly well in Finland and has gone on to receive a fantastic reception from international broadcasters upon launching at MIPTV 2016. The deals from around the world reflect the endearing nature and broad appeal of this format.”

My First Holiday captures that magical feeling of travelling to a foreign country for the first time, by following ordinary people as they take their very first steps in a different country. In each episode, real individuals from different backgrounds and generations – a couple, boyfriend and girlfriend, or dad and daughter, or mum and son – one of whom has never travelled abroad before, arrive at the airport, where they first learn their destination. Viewers follow them as they arrive on foreign soil, taste local food with its different flavours, walk along a foreign street, or try to communicate with someone who speaks a different language – all for the first time. It might feel strange and a little scary but it also opens up a wonderful new world.