Ahead of the UK’s four day bank holiday weekend taking place over the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations (Thursday 2 to Sunday 5 June), Mabrian has conducted an analysis of how this is impacting outbound UK travel to Europe’s top destinations.
The data points towards UK international travellers wanting to take advantage of the special four day bank holiday — which does not exist in the UK’s normal calendar (where normally bank holidays, except Christmas and Easter, can be a maximum of three days) — by planning to go away on the weekend before the bank holiday and thus gaining a whole week of holiday with only three days off work.
This analysis is based upon recent search demand for air tickets from the UK to Spain, Italy, Turkey, Greece, and Portugal all showing a peak for the weekend prior to the bank holiday, followed by a clear fall in demand in all of the destinations.
Based on the Mabrian inspirational demand indicator — which measures a markets’ strength of the demand for a destination — Spain is the clear choice of destination for Brits wanting to go abroad, taking up 12.09 per million of all searches and Italy coming far behind at 5.37, followed by Turkey, Greece and Portugal at 4.44, 4.30 and 4.16 respectively.
The demand for these destinations doesn’t appear to be directly linked however to average room prices, with Italy having the highest average price at €133.84, followed by Greece at €120.65, Spain just behind at €119.28, Portugal not far off at €118.23 and Turkey significantly cheaper at just €82.45.
Carlos Cendra, Sales & Marketing Director at Mabrian comments:
“Normally at this time of year there’s a steady increase in demand week by week for sun-and-sea European destinations from Brits as the temperatures get warmer and the summer season starts properly.
“But this year’s mega-bank holiday weekend thanks to Queen Elizabeth’s 70th anniversary celebrations has created a welcome one-off boost to demand with a clear preference from travellers to take the whole week off and benefit from nine days away for the price of just three days work holiday.
“Interestingly Spain is the clear winner from this despite not having the most competitive room prices, particularly when compared with Turkey, showing that a destination is much more than simply accommodation and that people are prepared to pay more for a familiar and high-quality experience
“Perhaps Britain can think up some other anniversaries to celebrate in say October time to boost the shoulder season across Europe?”
