Death knell for 2-week holidays
TWO-WEEK holidays are being ditched as millions opt for short trips abroad.
The annual fortnight away is in danger of becoming obsolete thanks to budget airlines and the internet, an official analysis found.
And the booze cruise across the Channel has all but died out, according to an Office for National Statistics report.
The number of foreign breaks taken by UK citizens that last for just three days has more than trebled over the past 20 years, and the number of week-long holidays abroad has doubled, the figures show.
Two-week foreign holidays are down from more than 5.25million in 1996 to just over 3.75million now.
The market in one- day leisure trips abroad – mostly ferry trips to France, with drink and tobacco shopping – has collapsed to less than a fifth of the number taken two decades ago, the report said.
Overall, Britons took more than 45million foreign holidays last year, compared with fewer than 27million in 1996 – almost back at the all-time peak reached in 2008 just before the recession.
The ONS also tracked changes in locations. Spain has eclipsed France as the most popular destination for UK tourists, with twice as many visits last year.
The rise of budget airlines has meant millions who would once have ferried their car to France now prefer Spain, the report said. Destinations that would have been unthinkable 20 years ago have seen a rise in popularity.
In 1996 Croatia was emerging from war and only 12,000 British tourists travelled there. In 2016 the figure was just short of 400,000. Dubai and Iceland also saw increases, while Turkey, Egypt, Kenya and Tunisia declined.
The ONS said: ‘One of the biggest changes we have seen over the past 20 years is the marked decline in the popularity of two-week holidays and the rise of short breaks.
‘The week-long break is a lot more popular than before, and there’s also been an increase in the number of holidays lasting ten nights.’
In the 1990s cheap flights were available mainly on charter airlines serving package tours, or via ‘bucket shops’ dealing in unsold seats offloaded by expensive scheduled airlines. The internet was in its infancy, and the most used electronic aid to holiday booking was teletext.
Hotel comparison websites have transformed costs and booking methods. Budget airlines have made getting abroad much cheaper – and electronic banking means money is more easily available to UK travellers.
The ONS report said that 20 years ago, ‘once you arrived at your destination … you were pretty incommunicado, unless you found a phone box’.
It added: ‘One of the most likely explanations for UK residents going on more, shorter, holidays is the growth of the budget airlines.’ From 1996 to 2015, the number of passengers using UK airports went up by 85 per cent.
The fall in two-week holidays is also linked to changes in working life that require more flexibility, rather than the fixed annual time off common for much of the 20th century.
The report, using the International Passenger Survey and other ONS data, noted the decline of the one- day booze cruise follows the scrapping of the duty-free system in 1999. France also began to raise the price of cigarettes after 2000, and the pound no longer enjoys a major advantage in value over the euro.
‘Rise of short breaks’