Thousands of Britons are abandoning Europe and their traditional annual holiday plans, heading for more unusual destinations to escape the effects of a faltering pound. As the currency continues to slide against the Euro, UK families are preparing to fly further afield to stretch their holiday finances.

For the first time since the great British holidaymaker began jetting off to foreign climbs in the sixties, the traditional favourites of Greece and Spain are proving less popular than non Eurozone destinations such as Egypt and Tunisia.  

The shift in holiday trends has been spotted by Cheapflights.co.uk which deals with thousands of enquiries everyday from people looking for the best flights to holiday destinations all over the world.

The company says that enquiries leapt up in April with favourites like Alicante in Spain showing a three per cent reduction in searches and Corfu in Greece dropping in position by 16 per cent.

“We noticed a change over the past month compared with March, where bookings were lower than the same time last year” says Francesca Ecsery, General Manager of Cheapflights.co.uk.

“We think many British families have been holding on to see if the pound picked itself back up against the European currency. But now they are not prepared to wait any longer, opting to holiday outside the Eurozone where they can get far better value for their money,” says Ecsery.

Cheapflights checked the current search traffic for several popular non-Euro destinations compared to the same time last year and found that Egypt's Red Sea resort of Sharm El Sheikh has shown a 50 per cent increase in searches for flights.

“Even allowing for the additional attraction of the Egyptian Pound's very slight weakness versus Sterling a year ago, the 50 per cent increase in interest shows that value for money is a key consideration for UK consumers,” says Ecsery.

Tunisia on the Mediterranean is also enjoying a double digit rise in popularity search traffic on Cheapflights rising year on year by 47 per cent.

Overall April to July is a busy time for Cheapflights.co.uk when there is a marked jump in traffic.  Last year it rose from April to July by 36 per cent.

Francesca Ecsery also commented: "Two countries which switched to the Euro on 31st January this year also saw increases in search traffic compared to last year with Malta showing a 35 per cent increase and old favourite Cyprus still managing a 10 per cent increase. It will be interesting to see how the switch to the Euro will affect their popularity over the next six months or so."