The most popular winter sun destinations are the Canary Islands and Southern Spain in the short haul market…
The most popular winter sun destinations are the Canary Islands and Southern Spain in the short haul market, and Florida and the Caribbean in the long haul sector.
In contrast, the promise of a winter wonderland among the mountains is the ultimate holiday experience for some and, as always, ski holidays to all the popular resorts have been sold out for quite some time. Favourite ski destinations this year continue to be in France, Austria, and Italy. But this year skiers will also be heading off to the US en masse in a bid to take advantage of the weak dollar. This year we have also seen growth in Eastern European ski holidays and the first ski package holiday to Romania will be flying from Manchester on 20 December, while Bulgaria continues to be popular.
For those who wish to escape a traditional western Christmas, but are seeking warmer temperatures, Egypt, Morocco and Dubai are proving to be exceptionally popular this year.
As usual, many have also made plans abroad for New Year, and Paris, Amsterdam, Prague, Dublin and New York are at the top of the list.
Because Christmas and New Year fall at the weekend this year, travel patterns are spread across the period, but most airports are reporting that Tuesday 28 December will be the busiest travel day. Ski tour operators have helpfully changed flight days so that holidaymakers will not be travelling on Christmas itself.
BAA estimate that a million will be leaving the UK through their seven airports, which include Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted and Southampton, while 140,000 will travel from Luton, 220,00 from Manchester and approximately 100,000 from Birmingham. East Midlands report a five per cent increase in traffic on last year with at least 31,000 passengers leaving the country from here, while Leeds Bradford will see 45,000 departing.
In addition, 400,000 are expected to travel under or over the English Channel to France, the Netherlands and Spain with 115,000 travelling on Eurostar with the train company having to put on 17 extra trains during the festive period.
Martin Wellings, ABTA`s president said: Christmas and the New Year are a peak time for the travel industry and yet again this year`s bookings have hit a record.
Theodore is the Co-Founder and Managing Editor of TravelDailyNews Media Network; his responsibilities include business development and planning for TravelDailyNews long-term opportunities.
