If you’re yet to book a summer holiday, you’re not alone.
More UK holidaymakers are leaving their getaways to the last minute due to financial pressures, concerns about the impact of the Iran war and the extreme heat both in the UK and overseas, travel experts have said.
The busiest day for UK flight departures this year is 28 August – the very tail end of the school holidays – with 3,321 scheduled, according to aviation analytics firm Cirium. This is followed closely by 4 September (3,317 departures) and 21 August (3,309 departures).
The figures suggest travellers are not only booking closer to departure but are also opting to travel later in the summer. Last year the busiest days for departures were 29 August, 22 August and 25 July.
August and September are the most popular departure months this year for package holiday customers who have booked with online travel agent loveholidays, which also found that bookings for trips departing the next day have increased by 26 per cent year on year.
Travel expert Bernard Lavelle at BL Aviation Consulting said Britons’ “absolute determination” to book holidays remains unchanged, but various factors such as wildfires in France and Spain, 40°C temperatures in Europe and even soaring heat in the UK are affecting booking behaviour.
“People are looking for bargains but perhaps not finding them as much as they would have liked to,” Lavelle said.
Holidaymakers are learning to be “a little bit more flexible and canny” and are booking later in a bid to get a better price, he added.
‘People don’t know if they’ll have enough money for holidays’
Andrew Harrison-Chinn, head of business at global travel platform Dragonpass, agreed that the cost of living is a big factor in driving people to book last minute.
“A lot of it comes down to consumers not knowing whether they’re going to have enough money to book a holiday… they’ll wait until they see whether they’ve been able to save enough money and then look for a deal,” he said.
Bookings made within 30 days of the peak summer period are up 28 per cent and make up 12 per cent of all bookings this season, said Advantage Travel Partnership, which represents independent travel businesses, with couples most likely to make the most of late getaways.
“The Middle East crisis played a big part in that as people were waiting to see what was going to happen, how it might impact them, so I think that’s been a big cause of why people booked so late,” John Sullivan, commercial director at Advantage Travel Partnership, said.
Uncertainty due to the conflict in the Middle East ranked highly among the reasons people have postponed booking their holidays (36 per cent), according to recent research from Abta, the trade association for UK travel agents. It found that of those who plan to take a trip over the next 12 months, 38 per cent of people have delayed booking their holiday.
Waiting to see what happens with the cost of flights (43 per cent) and holidays (31 per cent) and waiting to see if the cost of living improves (33 per cent) and concerns over the availability of jet fuel (26 per cent) were also among the top reasons for those delaying their bookings.
‘Last-minute flight prices have dropped’
There is some good news for those holding out for a deal, according to Al Murray, chief marketing and supply officer at loveholidays.
“Last-minute flight prices have dropped significantly compared to last year in response to shifting demand, and that’s helping holidaymakers to find great value holidays much closer to departure,” Murray said, adding that many people were heading for the likes of Majorca, Antalya, Costa Blanca, Tenerife and Ibiza.
For a time after the outbreak of war in Iran, travellers were avoiding destinations such as Turkey and Cyprus. “So, what Cyprus did and what Turkey did was to lower prices,” Lavelle said.
The implementation of the European Entry/Exit System (EES) and subsequent lengthy border queues may also be another factor behind delayed bookings and destination choice.
Greece has remained one of the most popular holiday destinations this year, in part due to its delayed roll-out of the EES scheme, Advantage Travel Partnership’s analysis found.
The UK’s prolonged hot and dry weather, which has resulted in four heatwaves and record-breaking temperatures, has boosted staycation demand.
Meanwhile, the extreme heat in Europe, which has resulted in the closure of tourist attractions and fuelled wildfires, has also affected where Britons are choosing to holiday overseas.
Flight searches to cooler destinations are climbing sharply year on year, with interest in Ottawa up 166 per cent, Salzburg up 92 per cent and Munich up 31 per cent compared with mid-July to late-August last year, according to travel deals company Kayak.
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