Posts Tagged ‘ Balearics ’

Why is this long-established holiday destination attracting so many more of us?

According to research for the travel trade show, World Travel Market, about 13 million people are yet to book their summer holiday.

Last weekend, the Spanish newspaper, El Pais, carried interviews with a few influential tourism heads suggesting that they want to cap the number of visitors visiting their destinations.

Starting today, some 1.8 million people will be leaving the UK for an Easter break with who knows how many taking to the roads for domestic breaks.

The travel market has taken a bit of a knocking this summer. James Murray, Digital Insights Manager at Experian Marketing Services, has the low-down

After a few years when the number of us going to Spain dropped, 2011 has seen a big return to our favourite destination. Up until the end of September, eleven million of us had been there which is up by not far short of a million over the year before.

Depending on whom you talk to, between 1-8 million and two million of us are airport bound this weekend as we use the last bank holiday of summer to take a break. The AA says that 16 million of us will take to the roads to explore parts of the UK and Ireland. Yet again, the media suggests it will be a record number of us travelling. When did they ever say it wasn’t?

Starting today, in a number of cities throughout the UK you will see the traveling bus promoting Menorca. Menorca has been one of the big winners in attracting us to visit them this year as concern grows about a North African holiday are heightened by media pictures. But Menorca is not leaving anything to chance and its bus to “battle” for our bookings is the way it has chosen.

Back last autumn you would probably expect that Egypt and maybe Tunisia would have been hot spots for tourist bookings this year. After the removal of the Tunisian president in January, it was to be expected that there would be a downturn in bookings at least until things had stabilised. The same could be said about Egypt. But as the disruption continues in North Africa and the Middle East, will, tourists be deterred from going to the whole area?