The staycation boom is definitely over. Research published this month by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) shows that Britons took 55.5 million holidays abroad last year, up from 45.6 million in 2022. Furthermore, a recent TrendBritain trend study found that – despite the ongoing cost of living crisis – 60 million holidaymakers went abroad. percent of respondents are planning a trip abroad in 2024, compared to 57 percent last year.
Having embraced domestic travel in recent years (not least because foreign travel was mired in red tape or completely banned for much of that time), we are once again flocking to foreign shores.
And who can blame us? Leaving the issue of weather aside for a moment, it’s hard not to conclude that British holidays simply don’t offer value for money, a major concern amid rising mortgage rates, food costs and energy bills.
Imagine you are looking for a summer vacation for your family. You want days on the beach, walks along the coast, or a nice meal out, but you’re worried about the prices. You might therefore assume that the answer is to stay in Britain. To visit Cornwall, not Corfu; the Lake District, rather than Tuscany. You’d be wrong.
Accommodation
I tried to look for a two bedroom holiday home in Cornwall in August. The cheapest result for a week from August 5 on one of the leading sites – holidaycottages.co.uk – currently costs £890, and that’s for a decidedly charmless-looking apartment. You can easily spend more than double that on some of the more stylish two-bedroom places, and for something smart for a party of eight you’re looking at more than £3,000.
Yes, it is possible to go on holiday in Great Britain cheaper. You can camp, stay in a caravan or head to less attractive coasts in Northern England. But then compare the above prices with what you can find on the mainland. A similar search on the Gites de France website (gites-de-france.com/en), for the same dates, yields options in Brittany from £350 and Provence from £300. For the same price as that mediocre apartment in Cornwall, you could stay at Venelle de la Croix, a characterful, self-catering accommodation on the hip Île de Ré, available through Sawday’s (sawdays.co.uk).
Airbnb was once hailed as a cost-saving alternative to traditional self-catering accommodations, but prices, as well as booking and cleaning fees, have soared in recent years. According to analytics firm AirDNA, the average nightly price for a rental property in Britain has risen 12 percent since 2024 to £153 in 2024. In France, Italy and Spain the average rates are £107, £124 and £121 respectively.
I searched Airbnb for a two-bedroom property in trendy Southwold, again for August 5-12: the cheapest option, a cute cottage, costs £1,548. However, opt for the equally cool Peñíscola in eastern Spain, and you’ll find a decent apartment for half that price.
Of course, you have to take the costs of getting there into account. But even as airfares rise, you can still find flights to Europe in high season for around £50 each way, or Eurotunnel returns for £200.
“We went on holiday to East Wittering just after Covid and it was awful. We will never do it again,” said Suzi Love, a mother of two from Winchester. “The house we booked cost £1,800 Monday to Friday, it was tired and mediocre at best, there wasn’t much choice of dining options and the high prices were not reflected in the quality of the food or service. Moreover, the weather was bad.”
Oh well, the weather. Even if British holidays could compete on price, it’s hard to overlook the fact that Cornwall gets around 187 hours of sunshine and 73mm of rainfall in August, while Andalusia gets around 300 hours and 1mm of rain.
“My girls are three and six, so they just need a beach or a pool, but when the weather isn’t good you really have to keep them entertained and that’s not a holiday for us adults,” Love adds. “With the gridlocked roads and sewage-contaminated beaches it’s all quite unpleasant, so we’d rather jump on a plane and fly within three hours to the south of Spain where the weather is more guaranteed.”
Dining out
Spain tops the rankings when it comes to Britons’ favorite destinations, says the ONS, with 21 percent of all foreign visits in 2023 to the land of sangria, followed by France (11 percent), Italy (6 percent) and Greece (5 percent). And when you look at the cost of food and drink in these countries, it doesn’t take much head-scratching to figure out why.
Every year the Post Office compares prices of food and drinks, along with other typical holiday purchases, at dozens of popular destinations. Buying a cup of coffee in the Algarve is estimated to cost you 88 cents, while the average price on the Costa del Sol is £1.58. For a three-course meal for two, including a bottle of wine, you can pay £40 or £60 respectively in the two sun-drenched regions, it says. Compare that to Britain, where a coffee ranges in price from £3 to £4, and an average three-course meal for two (including wine) costs closer to £70 or £80.
While food and drink prices are still rising in Britain (the year to January 2024 saw a 7 percent increase), the picture abroad is different. The Post Office Holiday Money Report 2024 found that prices for meals, drinks and other goods had fallen in 25 of the 40 destinations surveyed since last year.
Travel around
The high cost of train travel within Britain is another thorny issue. Say you want to reach your holiday apartment in Cornwall by train, take a leaf out of Greta Thunberg’s book and do your bit for the planet. The cheapest return flight from London to Penzance on August 5 currently costs £143 (that’s almost £600 for a family of four), with a journey time of just under five hours. If you travel from Manchester the bill will be £236 per person and the journey time will be over seven hours. And that’s before you add in the cost of a taxi to and from your accommodation. For comparison, a three-hour high-speed return from Madrid to Malaga, on the same date, costs from £55 per person.
The alternative, and the choice of most British holidaymakers, is to drive. Anyone who has spent a Friday, Saturday or Sunday on the A303 will never want to repeat the experience, but filling a family car with four people and driving from London to Cornwall is considerably cheaper than a train (around £60 one way). trip). Sorry, Greta.
it comes down to
Add up the costs of getting to your destination, accommodation and eating out, and a family of four can expect to spend well over £2,000 – probably closer to £3,000 – for a holiday in Britain. So it’s no wonder that fly-and-flop packages look so attractive. Head to Tui and for £2,000 you’ll get B&B accommodation for a week (including flights) at the Green Forest Hotel in Dalaman, Turkey (departing August 8); £3,000 will get you a one-week all-inclusive holiday at the Invisa Figueral Resort in Ibiza (departing on August 7).
UK holiday providers are recognizing that the glory days of Covid are over and are looking at ways to improve their offering. Last month, Telegraph Travel reported on how British holiday lets are doing their best to survive, adding everything from hot tubs to ax throwing. Prices have also been reduced.
James Norton, director of independent holiday company Toad Hall Cottages, confirms the market has gone “crazy” during the pandemic years, but says prices are now returning to where they should be.
“Dynamic pricing, set by automated algorithms, adjusts the price based on demand – how many visits a page gets, etc.,” he says. “Some sites are now offering 50 percent discounts, but that is a bit misleading. Prices are being corrected after a few inflated years, when some properties rented for £1,200 pre-Covid [per week] charged rates of £3,000 or £4,000.”
One way Toad Hall has expanded its offering is by moving changeover days to Wednesday, Thursday and Monday instead of Saturday and Sunday, “so people only spend five hours on the A303 instead of eight,” says Norton. He added: “Some owners have asked for prices to be reduced by 10 percent to secure bookings, although there are exceptions. The New Forest is doing incredibly well, with record bookings this year, and top properties in places like Salcombe are fully booked all summer.”
Even discounts won’t convince many of us to stay in Britain this summer. VisitBritain’s research highlighted a desire among holidaymakers to experience new cultures, which is exactly why Anna and Jon Long are taking their teenagers Ella, 17, and Ollie, 15, abroad.
“We didn’t make detailed or informed comparisons this summer because we gave up looking. Holidays in Britain are for the very organized: everywhere that is fun is super busy during the school holidays and fully booked well in advance,” says Anna. “Teenagers are much more picky when it comes to holidays and would rather be at home with their friends than stuck in a cottage in Devon in the pouring rain.
“When the cost of a holiday in Britain is so marginal we don’t think there are many holidays with the kids anymore, so it’s nice to do something special with them. I know we are lucky to be able to do that, but we love discovering something new as a family while we still can.”