UK’s first independent website dedicated to the growing singles holiday market.
A new travel inspiration website – 101 Singles Holidays – has been launched to meet the growing demand for organised trips amongst solo travellers.
The site highlights the huge variety of holidays now available to people travelling alone, including singles-only tours and tour operators that have persuaded hoteliers to waive single supplements.
The site features 101 recommendations selected by editor Cathy Winston, an award-winning travel journalist. Ideas include cruise, ski, winter sun, sports, personal development and adventure holidays. Cathy also provides advice and tips on solo travel.
The site is the sixth title from 101 Holidays, which has more than 5 million annual visitors. It says 101 Singles Holidays is the first independent singles travel site in the UK.
The site features established singles specialists such as Solo Holidays, Friendship Travel, Single with Kids and Frui, as well as mainstream operators targeting the solo market, such as Cox & Kings’ new dedicated tours for singles and Mercury Holidays’ worldwide portfolio of hotels with no single supplement.
Cathy Winston says: “Solo travel is one of the fastest growing markets and yet, until now, it has been poorly served when it comes to online resources. It’s encouraging to see more travel companies negotiating no single supplements in hotels and free twin-share arrangements on tours.”
101 Holidays conducted a survey of 100,000 holiday bookings in 2014 from tour operators that offer escorted tours. It found that 35% of clients were travelling alone. Operators expect that to rise to 38% in 2015.
Cathy Winston adds: ”Travelling solo has lost much of the lonely hearts stigma. The average age of single travellers, from our research, is 54 years with almost 60% female. They’re not all single either – we have found huge growth amongst people who are in a relationship but want to tick items off their personal travel bucket list.”
According to the research, 58.3% of single holidaymakers are female. But that figure rises for more active and exotic trips such as walking holidays (64%) and African safaris (60%). Men are more likely to take cycling and sailing trips.
ABTA‘s 2014 Consumer Holiday Trends report found that 13% of all UK holidaymakers now travel alone – and for people over 65 the figure rises to 21%.
The most popular destination for dedicated singles holidays is Greece, followed by Turkey, but travel companies say many solos are increasingly looking for adventure. Popular trips include cruises on the River Nile, trekking in Nepal, viewing the Northern Lights and gorilla trekking in Rwanda.
Cathy also points to an increasing growth in single parent holidays, with several companies scrapping supplements for mums or dads travelling alone with their kids.
Theodore is the Co-Founder and Managing Editor of TravelDailyNews Media Network; his responsibilities include business development and planning for TravelDailyNews long-term opportunities.
