Cost-of-living crisis blamed for consumers cutting summer holidays short

Holidaymakers are taking shorter trips due to cost-of-living pressures, new figures show.

Advantage Travel Partnership, a network of independent travel agents, said the average length of holidays sold by its members for this summer was 7.6 nights.

The company’s chief commercial officer, Kelly Cookes, described this figure as “lower than I would expect it to be”, as in 2019 – before the coronavirus pandemic – the total was around 10 nights.

She went on: “What we have seen from doing investigation into the data and speaking to members is that consumers do not want to trade down on the quality of their holiday, but we know that costs have increased.

“They perhaps can’t afford to do the 10 nights or the 14 nights that they did before.

“What they’re doing instead is maintaining the quality but decreasing the length of stay in resort, so that they can continue to enjoy the holiday that they would have done previously.”

Advantage Travel Partnership said its latest data shows many people are booking earlier than usual and choosing all-inclusive resorts to enable them to “budget for the year ahead”.

The company also commissioned a survey of 2,000 UK adults which suggested 70% of people aged 18-24 are “somewhat or very likely” to adjust the time of year they travel as a result of changing weather patterns, compared to just a quarter (25%) of people aged over 64.

Some 62% of respondents in the younger age range said they are likely to change their holiday destination due to climates becoming warmer in certain countries.

Thousands of UK holidaymakers were on the Greek island of Rhodes when parts of it were devastated by wildfires in July.

Sebastian Ebel, chief executive of travel company Tui, has predicted that more holidaymakers will opt for cooler destinations and times of the year when the temperature is not at its highest.

He said the company will put more focus on locations such as the Nordics, Belgium and the Netherlands.

– Advantage Travel Partnership commissioned research company OnePoll to survey 2,000 UK adults in August.