Stay ahead of the curve and future-proof your business with Mintel’s UK Travel Retail Market Report 2024. Our full report is packed with consumer-led market intelligence, the latest UK travel retail market research, trends, and consumer behaviours affecting your business. Get a 360° view of the sector, including the travel retail market forecasted growth to help you align your business strategy with the needs of your audience.
Below, we’ve handpicked the key insights analysed in the full report and summarised the core topics.
Airport passenger numbers experienced a notable resurgence in both 2022 and 2023, signaling a recovery phase post-pandemic. Yet, this positive trend is threatened by persistent challenges, including staffing shortages, cancellations, and escalating fuel expenses. These factors collectively pose a risk to the stability and growth of the airline industry during this recovery period.
There were 1,385 million railway journeys over 2022/23, a significant rise on the previous year. Despite this, journeys remained a third below their pre-COVID levels. Car ownership, which is important to the travel retail sector for MSAs, also picked up in 2023. However, concerns regarding rising fuel expenses serve as an impediment to car ownership and influence the frequency and distance of trips.
As the travel retail market bounces back and against the backdrop of cost of living crisis, market research confirms that travellers are interested in prioritising offers and/or discounts, impulse purchases as well as speed.
Readers of this report may also be interested in our UK Holiday Review Report 2024, or our range of Holidays and Travel Market Research.
Utku is a member of the European Retail Team and responsible for research and writing reports. He has almost two decades of success in driving global thought leadership, project and content management experience delivering strategic business intelligence and actionable insight to major multinational companies.
Amidst the cost of living crisis, offers/discounts have become more important. Consumers prioritise speed, impulse buying, and product variety while travel rebounds.
Utku Tansel
Senior Retail Analyst
Mintel is the world’s leading market intelligence agency. We show you how consumers think today and tomorrow. As a trusted partner to industry leaders, we deliver game-changing insights to businesses across the globe, fuelling their marketing and innovation strategies that will shape the future.
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