UK Holiday Industry Review 2024
Holidays remain a priority for consumers and many are eager to upgrade their trips in search of convenience, high quality experiences or to mark special occasions.
Trusted by leading global brands
Collapse All
-
Executive Summary
- Opportunities for the UK travel market
- Multi-generational holidays a key trend in 2024
- Increase in wildfires and heatwaves leads to a change in booking behaviour
- Recommendations for less-touristy destinations appreciated
- Market dynamics and outlook
- The five-year outlook for the UK travel market
- Market value forecast for domestic tourism, 2018-28
- Market value forecast for overseas tourism, 2018-28
- Extreme weather patterns continue to impact holiday behaviour
- What consumers want and why
- Holiday participation fully returns to pre-pandemic levels
- Over half of consumers intend to travel overseas in the next year
- City breaks remain most desired holiday type in the UK
- Multi-generational holidays a rising trend
- Spending quality time with family and friends comes out on top
- Three-quarters of Gen Zs say social media influences their holiday ideas
- Innovation and marketing
- easyJet holidays launches ‘Grans Go Free’ deal
- TUI and British Airways offer British Sign Language interpretation
- Visit Britain collaborating with the British Film Commission following a rise in ‘set-jetting’
-
Market Dynamics
- Market size – domestic holidays
- Market size – overseas holidays
- Market forecast – domestic holidays
- Market forecast – overseas holidays
- Macro-economic factors
- Inflation is still the key factor affecting consumers’ finances, while interest rates will rise in importance
- Holiday bookings and booking intentions
- Social, environmental and legal factors
- Final COVID-19 travel restrictions lifted on long-haul destinations
- Extreme weather patterns continue to impact holiday behaviour
- More workers in pursuit of the digital nomad lifestyle
-
What Consumers Want and Why
- Holiday destinations – visited
- Holiday participation fully returns to pre-pandemic levels
- Domestic tourism remains a popular option among Brits
- Despite participation levels being down for overseas holidays, average spend reaches record high
- Participation in visiting overseas destinations recovering towards pre-pandemic levels
- Scottish holiday participation reaches five-year high
- Holiday destinations – future intentions
- Intentions to head away overseas reach a four-year high
- Over half of consumers intend to travel overseas in the next year
- Demand for short-haul travel remains strong
- Opportunity for France to boost holiday numbers
- Short-haul destinations continue to appeal to families
- Holiday types – participation vs future intentions
- City breaks remain most desired holiday type in the UK
- Opportunity to promote family-friendly UK cruises
- Domestic cultural sightseeing coach tours appeal to all generations
- Overseas summer beach holidays remain a firm favourite
- Multi-generational holidays a rising trend
- Rural and countryside holidays continue to appeal
- Reasons for taking a holiday
- Spending quality time with family and friends comes out on top
- Quality time with loved ones is considered a priority
- Older travellers keen for relaxing, sunny holidays…
- …whilst younger travellers interested in keeping physically healthy and learning new skills
- Reasons for not taking an overseas holiday
- Cost is the main barrier for two-fifths of travellers
- Brands should focus on promoting affordable domestic tourism for younger travellers
- Nearly one-fifth of parents say they find travelling abroad with children too difficult
- Wildfires and heatwaves lead to a change in consumer booking patterns
- Holiday behaviours
- Quality remains paramount for travellers
- Quality considered more important than cost
- Two-thirds would be interested in exploring less touristy destinations
- Brands have a long road ahead when it comes to sustainable travel
- ‘Workations’ appeal skewed towards younger men
- Young men most interested in ‘workcations’
- Opportunity for brands to cater towards beach and city ‘workcations’
- Three-quarters of Gen Zs say social media influences their holiday ideas
-
Innovation And Marketing Trends
- Launch activity and innovation
- easyJet holidays launches 60 holidays for £99
- easyJet holidays launches ‘Grans Go Free’ deal
- TUI expands into Kenya for its latest long-haul destination
- TUI and British Airways offer British Sign Language interpretation
- Jet2holidays launches ‘Certified Sustainable Hotels’ labelling scheme
- Contiki launches new Vegan Food Europe Explorer
- Visit Britain collaborating with the British Film Commission following a rise in ‘set-jetting’
-
Appendix
- Market forecast data and methodology
- Report scope and definitions
- Methodology
For the most up-to-date market research on the UK holiday industry, take a look at Mintel’s newly published UK Holiday Industry Review 2025
Topics Analysed in this Report
- How the rising cost of living is impacting the performance of the domestic and overseas holiday markets.
- Holiday market trends in bookings and intention to book.
- How consumers’ holidaying behaviour is likely to change in 2024, compared to recent years.
- Which holiday types and destinations show growth potential.
- Reasons behind consumers taking or not taking holidays.
- For the purposes of this report: Mintel defined a holiday as a stay of at least one night that is primarily for leisure purposes. Business trips and visiting friends or relatives are not included.
UK Holiday Market Overview
The overseas holiday market is benefiting more than the domestic holiday market due to the continued increase in consumers’ financial confidence and how holidaying abroad remains a key priority for the majority of Brits.
Nevertheless, holidays have become more expensive and inflation is likely to remain relatively high for some time to come. Mintel’s holiday market research reveals that as such, extra overseas ‘top-up’ breaks will be sacrificed by many, as travellers continue to prioritise their main summer holiday.
- Holiday market size: Mintel forecasts that the overseas holiday market rose to £48 billion in 2023.
Holiday Market Trends, Challenges and Opportunities
Rise of the multi-generational holiday
The lockdown restrictions meant that many families spent more time together over the past couple of years compared to before the pandemic. Many are eager to continue this trend, with interest in family holidays increasing pointing to the rising trend of multi-generational holidays.
Recommendation for less-touristy places
With the issue of overtourism becoming more prominent in the media – often focusing on locals’ complaints and disgruntles with large numbers of tourists descending on a destination in such a short amount of time – Mintel’s holiday market research reveals that tourists are increasingly keen to book holidays in less-known and quieter destinations.
- UK holiday industry trends: 66% of travellers would be interested in travel companies suggesting quieter alternatives to tourist hotspots.
Purchase our UK Holiday Review Market Report to receive a five-year forecast, consumer behaviour analysis, and recommendations for market opportunities. Readers of this report may also be interested in our UK Wellness Traveller Market Report, or our range Holidays and Travel Market Research.
Brands Featured in the Full Report
EasyJet, TUI, Jet2Holidays, Contiki, Visit Britian, and more.
Expert Insights from a Travel & Leisure Analyst
This report, written by Jennie Bryans, a leading research analyst, delivers in-depth commentary and analysis to highlight UK holiday market trends and add expert context to the numbers.
Holidays remain a priority for consumers and many are eager to upgrade their trips in search of convenience, high quality experiences or to mark special occasions.
Jennie Bryans
Travel & Leisure Analyst
£ 2,195 excl. Tax
Secure direct checkout
Instant PDF download
Portal access included
Need help deciding?
Get in touch
Trusted by global industry leaders
We use Mintel to inform our thinking and reinforce strategy. If you’re presenting new ideas, it’s essential they are underpinned by robust data and evidence, and clearly rooted in fact.
Mintel gives us all that. It’s a great brand and one that is trusted by clients.
Marie Stafford, European Director, The Innovation Group, VML
We use Mintel Reports, mostly for financial services and ecommerce markets, plus a few retail and technology ones.
As a leading payments provider, we value additional insights into consumer behaviour, opinions and trends that are shaping the many different markets we operate in. Mintel is a very good and very quick way for us to obtain those insights.
We use Mintel to get a view on where a particular market is going, which can support us in product development and help us identify opportunities or indeed risks, it is a very useful barometer of a market’s potential.
Andrew Neeson, Market Intelligence Manager, VocaLink
We utilize Mintel Reports, Trends and Comperemedia to mine for insights across the numerous business verticals that Epsilon serves, such as CPG, automotive, telecom, healthcare/pharma, retail and financial services.
By integrating Mintel insight into new business opportunities, we have been able to gain the competitive edge necessary to advance partnerships with global brands and key business players.
For our organization, it’s about depth and breadth. Having one without the other doesn’t enable success in our business.
Virginia Harvey, Secondary Research Manager, Epsilon
One of the biggest challenges we face is the need to get smart on a business or category real quick.
We are talking to clients who live and breathe their category every day and the expectation is that we will be able to get caught up very quickly, and bring the thinking that can help them.
We need to do that often in a matter of days, so it’s not a small ask. Mintel gives us a very articulate view of category conditions and does so at the speed we need it.
Jeff White, Business Development Director, Deutsch
Mintel helps us when we want to know something quickly – it provides fast answers to our questions. If we need to get a view of what’s going on in a particular market it’s very useful.
When carrying out background research, I find Mintel an excellent starting point.
The fact that it covers so many markets is a big plus for me– instead of having to buy specialist products in each area we are interested in, especially when we only require a brief view on a particular market, we can go to Mintel for help as a one-stop shop. I find Mintel a useful and valuable resource.
Ben Zeidler, Director - Research and Analytics, Tenth Wave
There is no question that Mintel is the go-to resource for the best quality market research, but I did not think it was an affordable option for Abacus Marketing to consider. As a small marketing agency, we only work with a few new clients each year.
However, we have a very high-end consultative approach to our work, so we really do need a partner like Mintel to provide the big agency experience we are always aiming to deliver. Our clients come from an incredibly diverse range of industry sectors, so we obviously need access to market research reports from a very wide spectrum of marketplaces – and that is precisely what we got.
Stephen Taylor-Brown, Managing Director, Abacus
We’ve found it so useful working more closely with Mintel. They helped support our recent flagship event for our top suppliers by providing a really unique viewpoint on the future of online retailing.
Nick Carroll from their Retail Team was also an excellent panelist, sharing useful and actionable consumer insights. We definitely look forward to working with Mintel again on future projects.
Zac Steele, E-Commerce Trading Development Manager, Waitrose & Partners
Working in a customer-obsessed organization means that data and insights have to be at our fingertips. Mintel’s reports help us support anecdotes with real quantifiable insights. The summary sections (which I really like) helps save time by giving a birds eye view of the content before spending time combing through the pages.
Our business review discussions are strengthened by the relevancy of the reports to help us better understand our customers. In addition, the customer service received from the team (especially in crunch periods) makes the process of understanding customer behavior even better.
Ngozi Ngonadi-Nkwoji, Senior Marketing Manager, Amazon
When I’m investigating specific sectors I tend to use Mintel reports for their forecasting, which I’ve always found to be very accurate.
They also offer really broad and deep coverage in their reports. They are very, very detailed. For example, we were able to gain insight across a wide range of business areas from just one report, proving that Mintel is excellent value for money.
So overall, it’s the level of detail and the quality of forecasting that really stand out for me.
Rebecca Green, Market Insight Manager, Wincanton
Mintel is really good for getting a handle on a particular category quickly. If we are working on a new business pitch in an area we don’t have much experience in, it’s a brilliant way to get up to speed with what’s going on, what’s changing and what the key trends are in any category.
It’s very rare now that anyone will plough through a 200-page report – that’s why the summaries are really useful. We know they are backed up by a lot of detail, so if you need to go into something in more depth you know the information will be all there for you.
Pauline Robson, Managing Partner, Mediacom
At Jackman, we believe that powerful strategies are based on human insight. Mintel’s leading-edge reports and insights into consumer attitudes and behaviors are an important input as we develop and execute strategy.
Alana Gavin, VP Research and Insights, Jackman
We have such a great working relationship with Mintel on lots of different levels. As an insight partner, they have helped us to develop our business planning in specific categories as well as supporting our creative process but they’ve also been super helpful with facilitating our events in their inspirational offices near St Paul’s.
They’re an innovative company, with a client-focused team that always delivers.
Abby Carvosso, Group Managing Director, Bauer Media Group
