Short Breaks More Popular Than Ever - Uk Tourism To Suffer

By Author: Maria Tillinghous
Total Articles: 33
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The horrendous May Public Holiday weather and heavy rainstorm which met workers on their way back to the office on the Tuesday, following a long weekend, has led to a large increase in orders for vacations abroad. Many UK residents it seems are trying to duck away from the unpredictable weather of the UK and go somewhere hot and sunny. Over the course of the bank holiday and particularly around Tuesday lunch time, online travel websites like, Thomson and First Choice experienced incredible increases in online holiday bookings, some even by twenty one per cent.

The climate of the UK is a strong reason in driving British holiday makers abroad in record numbers again this year, bookings alone for winter breaks have dramatically increased and demand for short city breaks is ever growing. With the state of global financial anxiety in the UK at the moment, short city breaks are becoming popular with people not ready to fork out for full price vacations. The average cost for a week's holiday has recently been put at £2,057, according to a recent survey of around three thousand travellers abroad.

The shorter, city ...
... breaks, costing less are rising in demand, fuelled by costs of a fortnight abroad as opposed to shorter breaks, a recent survey by an online travel website, reported that over twenty per cent of holiday makers are choosing for these short city breaks as opposed to only 23 per cent taking a fortnight or more.

A stark reason for the expansion in city breaks and enticement of far away sunny destinations is due to the pound's current standing against the Euro. The pound is weak against the Euro,at the moment, a Euro costs 80p. This has led to traditional destination haunts like Cyprus, Greece and Spain take a decline in bookings with holiday makers looking at less expensive alternatives in countries such as Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey and Morocco where the pound is stronger.

One of these countries, Romania, have certainly noticed a steady increase of tourism to their seaside resorts over the last few years. Last year alone the tourism market made 34 million Euros more than in the previous year. Although, many Britons choose to holiday now in eastern European countries, the infrastructure and facilities does not have enough fascination to make foreign tourists spend more money and so aid their economy. Even still, the forecasts for this year is that the amount of tourists should increase by around 12-16%.

19% of holiday makers surveyed were also looking to visit destinations were the pound is strong. This means that America, with its weak dollar is particularly charming with cities such as Las Vegas, Las Angeles and New York touted as potential break destinations.

To conclude the imminent insecurity surrounding the strength of the pound against other currencies as well as mounting utility, fuel and mortgage payments, will certainly mean that holidays abroad to traditional destinations like Spain and Greece, occur less frequently and breaks to eastern European countries like Bulgaria increase, from our need to get the most from our money in today's tough financial climate.