ABTA’s Holiday Habits 2024/25 report finds travel remains as important as ever to the UK public.
However, this thirst for travel comes at time of change and uncertainty for consumers.
The political landscape is shifting, nationally and globally. In the UK we have a new government and, in the USA, a new President will be taking up office in the White House. Additionally, numerous countries are experiencing appalling conflict, some of which has been escalating in recent months.
Domestically, while inflation has stabilised, day-to-day costs still remain high for many.
When taking this all into account, you’d be forgiven for assuming that the picture could be quite bleak when it comes to holiday taking. But as this report shows that’s not the case – those people who travelled this year (84%) took more holidays than previous years, with young families proving to be the most prolific travellers.
In fact, the sector has a level of consumer confidence that bucks the wider trend, with our Travel Confidence Index showing that confidence to travel has increased since last year.
This confidence can be attributed in part to the organised travel sector, with those who booked a package holiday or with a travel professional the most confident.
We’ve also seen a rise in the number of people booking with travel professionals (38%) for holidays abroad, many doing so in order to have someone to help and support if something goes wrong.
That’s perhaps no surprise given some of the operational challenges that have affected travel in recent years; the air traffic control outage at the end of summer 2023, wildfires and a global IT problem this year, for example. Through these incidents, travel agents and operators played an important role supporting customers.
Our research also finds that people continue to have expectations of their travel business to offer more sustainable holidays and help customers make more sustainable choices. As an industry we are tackling sustainability issues relating to holidays – from the impact in destinations to decarbonisation in the sector and restoring nature. It’s only by working in collaboration that we will achieve the progress needed, while at the same time ensuring holidays remain affordable.
For this year’s research we also explored what holidays mean to people. The top reasons given as to why holidays are important are being able to relax, spending time with family and friends, and supporting mental health. Our members are here to help people achieve all this and more, by offering holidays with the confidence and peace of mind of the ABTA badge.
Mark Tanzer, Chief Executive
