Two million Brits head for holidays abroad
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Posted on: July 19th, 2008 by Taylor Smith
Most of the schools in the UK are breaking for the summer holidays on 18 July, meaning that the upcoming weekend will be one of the busiest of the year for travel, with an anticipated two million British holidaymakers heading overseas.
Spain is the most popular destination once again, says the Association of British Travel Agents (ABTA), but France, Malta and islands in the Caribbean are also showing strong demand.
Egypt is actually showing the largest growth in bookings for 2008, with a 28 per cent increase in reservations. Turkey follows on at 20 per cent, and the USA, at eight per cent, is also proving to be popular.
The chief executive of the ABTA, Mark Tanzer commented: “With a changing economic climate, many existing trends have become more pronounced. Spain for example, is still the top destination this year, but as a mature destination, and with the strong euro, greater growth is being experienced in the mid- to long-haul destinations outside of the eurozone.”
He continued: “Conversely, there is no surprise that with the weak dollar, the US is doing well, and forward bookings for the US look strong.”
Heathrow Airport, expecting 460,000 departing passengers, will be the busiest gateway for the coming weekend, followed by Gatwick, which is expecting traffic of 260,000 passengers.
Manchester Airport, expecting 160,000 passengers, is likely to be busier than London’s Stanstead Airport, where 150,000 passengers are planned for. Hundreds of thousands more Britons are expected to depart from numerous regional gateways in the UK.
www.abta.com
diane
We done a survey on our magazine website about the credit crunch and how many people are going to stay in the UK for holidays rather than go abroad and we were shocked at the results. Most people said they were going to stay in the UK because of the credit crunch to save money. But after our investigation into british holidays and where people said they were going to go, we actually found they would save money by going abroad. What people do not remember is, when they go and stay in the UK, they are paying for the petrol to get them there, so if you live in manchester and you are going to Devon then this is going to cost you to travel there. You then have the travel back, plus you have the food and the drinks which are not at spanish prices, so you are not saving money there. And if you smoke then you will not save money there as well. This is all before you pay for your accomodation. So what I would say is, stay in the UK if you want, but do not expect it to be cheaper than going abroad because you will find it will not be cheaper and you would have saved money abroad, plus you would have had the sun as well.