British tourists not put off by European heatwaves, report reveals

In the wake of two successive summers in which significantly high temperatures have been recorded in southern European destinations, the travel industry has wondered whether the era of the classic Mediterranean beach break may be coming to a close.

However, there is no evidence to suggest that, during July and August, British travellers are interested in avoiding the yearly heatwave – or that they intend to abandon the Spanish Costas or the islands of the Aegean for the cooler conditions of Scandinavia or the Baltic states, according to a new survey.

The annual Holiday Habits report published by the travel industry body Abta – released in its 2024 iteration on Tuesday as part of the group’s annual autumn convention, currently being held in the Peloponnese region of Greece – shows that British holiday tastes have remained largely static in the past 12 months, in spite of a series of incidents where the weather has played villain.

Research for the study was conducted in July and August. Questions were put to 2,000 British tourists about their travel experiences over the preceding 12 months – a period which included the wildfires that, most notably, led to the evacuation of holidaymakers from resorts along the east coast of Rhodes in the summer of 2023.

However, the results suggest that, although alarming, such incidents have not dampened the British desire for sun and sand in familiar places.

Spain reigns

The top five destinations for British holidaymakers over the past year have been exactly the same as those revealed in Abta’s 2023 Holiday Habits report.

Spain remains our most popular option for a week or fortnight away – almost one in three of all British holidaymakers (31 per cent) paid it a visit between August 2023 and August 2024.

The country’s popularity has held largely firm over the course of the past year – suggesting that the widely reported protests against overtourism, most visibly apparent in the busier resort areas of Majorca and Tenerife – has not discouraged British tourists.

That figure of 31 per cent is only a small decrease on the statistic for 2023 – when Spain was also, by far, the most popular holiday choice, featuring in 33 per cent of British foreign trips.

Nor is there any change in the identities of the other destinations towards the top of the list. Some 22 per cent of all British travellers went to France (in second place) over the past year, while 17 per cent headed to Italy (in third place).

The United States, in fourth place, was the only non-European destination to make the top five – 15 per cent of Britons crossed the pond in the past 12 months. Greece, in fifth, was almost as in-demand – 13 per cent of British holidaymakers flew to the likes of Crete, Corfu, Rhodes and Santorini over the course of the past year.

Sun, sea and sand

In all, the allure of the Mediterranean has remained hugely resilient. More than four in five (83 per cent) of British holidaymakers have enjoyed a getaway somewhere in continental Europe since August 2023. The likes of Portugal (sixth), Malta (14th) and Croatia (15th) were also popular options.

Beach breaks were the most common type of holiday taken – 48 per cent of British holidays involved a hotel within close range of the sea. A city break was the second most likely choice (43 per cent).

Moreover, the data shows no discernible evidence of Britons swapping the peak months of summer for potentially more temperate periods of the calendar. Asked about their holiday plans for the remainder of 2024 and the key travel months of 2025, more than two thirds of those surveyed (68 per cent) said they intend to travel abroad in that window.

And summer is the most likely season for them to do so – 17 per cent said they plan to go away next May, 15 per cent said June, 15 per cent said July, and 16 per cent said August.

“A new word to enter vocabularies this year has been ‘coolcations’, as people speculate whether high temperatures are leading people to seek out cooler holiday destinations,” the report explains.

“Our data suggests that isn’t the case. The destinations on the UK’s most-visited list offer an abundance of options for warm, sunny holidays – leading us to believe that ‘coolcations’ are the exception rather than the rule.”

Elsewhere in the survey, the numbers indicate that – in spite of excessive heat, wildfires and fears over the outbreaks of war in eastern Europe and the Middle East – the health of the holiday industry has returned to the level it was at immediately prior to Covid.

In the past 12 months, Britons took an average of 3.9 holidays each – a figure that was last seen before the pandemic, in 2019. This was also a significant increase on the number for 2023, when the average number of holidays taken by British tourists was 3.4.