The Advantage Travel Partnership Christmas booking trends and 2025 forecast
The Advantage Travel Partnership, Britain’s largest consortium of unbiased journey brokers, has reported an distinctive finish to the yr, with a powerful surge in bookings and income progress throughout each the festive interval and for 2025 bookings.
Top Destinations for 2024 Christmas Travel
Bookings total for the Christmas interval are seeing an increase of 12% over 2024, with The Canary Islands dominating bookings for the festive interval and Tenerife, Lanzarote and Gran Canaria taking the highest three spots. This is adopted by the ever-popular Benidorm, proving that travellers are persevering with to favour solar and seashore holidays to flee the gloomy UK climate this winter.
While Europe stays a robust favorite, long-haul journey continues to point out strong efficiency. In phrases of mid- and long-haul locations, the USA, Dubai and Thailand are rising as essentially the most sought-after areas for travellers this season. Long-haul bookings have confirmed resilient all through 2024, even within the face of financial uncertainty. This enduring demand for long-haul journey displays the truth that travellers are on the lookout for richer cultural, immersive experiences and a way of journey that may be supplied by for much flung locations. Long-haul locations additionally stay in style as they’ll cater to a various vary of budgets, from luxurious holidays to extra inexpensive choices. For instance, Dubai continues to draw each these on the lookout for luxurious in addition to households looking for family-friendly resorts, buying and leisure. Thailand, with its various choices from price range backpacking to luxurious resorts, gives an interesting mix of affordability and unique attraction.
City breaks are additionally persevering with to be a well-liked development, with robust gross sales of the extra established favorite metropolis break locations for this time of the yr, together with Budapest and Prague, and additionally some lesser-known metropolis break locations equivalent to Porto and Gdansk, which supply distinctive worth to journey to and when you’re there.
The commonest journey size remained at eight nights, according to final yr’s development. All-inclusive packages have been the dominant selection for travellers, accounting for round 50% of bookings and seeing important progress. This aligns with client wishes to handle their budgets throughout the festive interval whereas having fun with peace of thoughts on a hassle-free, all-inclusive vacation.
Looking Ahead to 2025: A Positive Start to the Year
Looking forward to 2025, The Advantage Travel Partnership is monitoring forward of final yr by 15% in bookings to date. As anticipated, summer season holidays are main the best way, with summer season bookings accounting for 55% of all reservations. The common length for these journeys is 10 nights, the identical as presently in 2024.
Destinations for 2025 mirror lots of the trends seen this yr, with Tenerife, Majorca and Costa Blanca holding the highest three spots for European getaways. Long-haul journey is seeing continued curiosity, with the USA, the Caribbean and Thailand topping the checklist for worldwide locations.
Julia Lo Bue-Said, CEO of The Advantage Travel Partnership stated: “We’ve had a extremely robust efficiency all through 2024 and it’s nice that we’re ending the yr on a excessive. The power of buying and selling all through 2024 displays the resilience of each our journey agent companions and the broader journey sector. The urge for food for journey continues to develop as shoppers search each worth and expertise, and we’re excited to see this momentum proceed into 2025.
“Our agent companions throughout the UK additionally proceed to see new prospects as individuals look to guide their journey by way of a journey agent, not solely to get entry to nice offers but additionally for peace of thoughts when travelling.
“As the UK travel industry now enters one of the year’s peak booking periods, when approximately 60% of Brits book a family summer package holiday by the end of February, our travel agency partners are gearing up for a busy period. Across our national network of travel agency partners, we are supporting them with a major marketing campaign: That Just Booked Feeling, with offers, promotions, and incentives to encourage early bookings.”