Have you walked past a travel agency recently? If so, you’ll have noticed that the offers and last-minute deals, when still orange-rimmed and scribbled in highlighter, look very different from those of just a few years ago. Where we used to say “7 days. Lanzarote. H/B. £229pp” we could now see figures three times higher.
But is this the complete picture? Aren’t flights much cheaper now? What about car rentals, train tickets, historic sites and family-friendly attractions?
Which? trip magazine celebrating its 50th anniversarye anniversary this year, has dusted off its old editions to reveal the changing costs of holidays over the decades.
The consumer champion found that air costs have fallen significantly in real terms since the 1970s, but are now more expensive on average than the relative lows of the 1990s or early 2000s. Package holiday prices are also rising.
But it is not the Balearic Islands or Benidorm that have seen the most growth since 1974. If you want to spend a lot of capital, go to London for a day.
In 1974, entry to the Tower of London cost just 10p – the equivalent of 90p in today’s currency. However, if you visit this year you will pay a princely £34.80 per adult, an increase of 3,767 per cent.
While entry to Madame Tussauds once cost just 75p, or £7 in today’s money, a ticket now costs £33 if you buy it in advance – rising to a whopping £42 if you buy it on the day, an increase of 500 percent based on the price on the day.
A ticket to Kew Gardens cost just 1 pence in 1974 (9 pence in today’s money). Now prices range from £12 to £24 per adult depending on whether you visit in summer or winter, and whether you book in advance, an increase of 26,566 per cent, based on the most expensive ticket.
The London Zoo, which once cost just 80p to enter (£7.20 in today’s currency), costs £27 per person during off-peak times, and up to £33 on weekends, an increase of 358 percent based on weekend ticket.
The journey to London must be included in the price of a break in the first place, and train fares have also remained stubbornly expensive.
A return train from Edinburgh to London would have cost £12 in 1974. Taking inflation into account, that’s around £108 today – comparable to the best pre-sale price currently available. Travel times have certainly improved in many cases, with the train journey today taking just under four and a half hours from London to Edinburgh, down from six hours in the 1970s.
Rail operators always claim that only a handful of people pay the highest ticket prices today and that bargain hunters can travel relatively cheaply thanks to ‘dynamic pricing’. But who wants to plan a weekend getaway in the Smoke a month in advance?
Ferry tickets have also remained stable. In 1974, a family of four would have paid £12 return for a ferry crossing from Dover to Calais – about £108 in today’s money. Although the opening of the Channel Tunnel in 1994 ostensibly increased competition, prices have not fallen as much as might have been expected. Instead, a crossing remains expensive – with the cheapest crossing Which? researchers found a price of £187 in a special offer in summer 2023. Add a car to your ferry ticket and it can even be cheaper to rent one when you arrive at your destination – see below.
In the early 1970s, flights were actually expensive, the magazine’s researchers argue, and prices could fluctuate quickly. Between late 1973 and March 1974, the price of crude oil rose 300 percent, driving up prices, while inflation peaked at 23 percent in 1975.
Back then, shopping around wasn’t an option to get a better price because it was illegal for airlines to set their own fares, which were set by national governments.
Which? Data shows that a flight to the Greek capital Athens in 1974 would have cost 313 percent more in real terms than it does today. In 1974 the average price was £80 (£723 adjusted for inflation), compared to just £175 in August 2023.
Similarly, a flight to Rome, Italy, was on average 238 percent more expensive, costing £55 (£497 in today’s currency) compared to £147 in August 2023.
But while today’s flight prices are cheaper than in 1974, they are not as cheap as they were in the golden age of cheap flights from the 1990s onwards.
According to the Office for National Statistics, the average return flight from Britain to Europe cost just £123 in the summer of 2010 (£181 in today’s figures), but had increased by 78 percent to an average of £322 by 2023.
Flights are not the only holiday element that is becoming more expensive. Despite increased competition today, Which? Research showed that a package was relatively cheap in the 1970s or 1980s.
In 1986, a weekly package on the Costa Blanca in summer cost £160, the equivalent of £456 at today’s prices.
In 1991, a package including two weeks’ half-board in an average hotel in the summer cost £450 per person in Spain (£986 at today’s prices), £507 per person in Italy (equivalent to £1,110 at today’s prices), and £517 per person in Greece (equivalent to £1,132).
Packages are much more expensive on average these days. Which? says the average price of just one week of half-board in Spain in August would cost £995 per person – similar to a two-week stay in the 1990s. A week in Italy half board would cost £1,120 per person, and in Greece £1,257 per person.
Car rental has seen major fluctuations in recent years. For decades it was exorbitant, and one of the most stressful parts of a vacation was marking off the scratches and dents on the clipboard and agreeing to a hefty waiver fee. Renting in the United States has always been more relaxing and cheaper. But the price of car rentals fell in the early years of the millennium, then rose sharply after the pandemic, as car rental companies struggled to meet consumer demand due to car shortages.
Which? claims that it is slightly cheaper to rent a car today than in decades past.
A week’s car rental in Spain cost an average of £84 in 1978, the equivalent of £438 in today’s currency. That’s not much higher than last summer’s peak prices, when a week’s car rental cost £339 in Alicante and £376 in Palma de Mallorca.
Prices are cheaper this year, with a recent Which? Analysis shows that prices have fallen in many destinations since their 2023 peaks. The average cost of a week’s car rental fell by 34 percent year-on-year in Alicante this summer and by 28 percent in Palma de Mallorca.
“Decade after decade, travel and holidays have become cheaper and therefore accessible to more people, so it is worrying to reveal a recent trend of price increases, often significant,” says Rory Boland, the editor of Which? trip.
“The golden age of affordable flights of the 1990s and early 2000s now appears to be a thing of the past.
“The cost of a day out in particular has risen by astronomical amounts – with many of London’s most popular attractions charging entry fees that far exceed inflation and are beyond many people’s means. However, there are still plenty of ways to keep costs down – from shopping around and using comparison sites when booking a flight, to checking for online vouchers and schemes for cheaper attraction tickets.”