24 Aug
2018

The Great Bank Holiday Getaway

ABTA – The Travel Association is estimating that 2.2 million Brits are set to head overseas this bank holiday weekend (24 -27 August). Holidaymakers travelling to the Mediterranean will benefit from guaranteed sunshine with more manageable temperatures than those seen last month with popular resorts predicted to see a pleasant 29-30 degrees.

ABTA Members are reporting strong sales with the Balearic Islands, mainland Spain, Greece and Florida leading the way. Turkey has seen spectacular growth this summer and holidaymakers travelling out over the weekend will not only benefit from extremely good value holiday prices but also a weak local currency where your pound will get you almost twice as many Turkish liras than this time last year.

City breaks are a good option for the long weekend and Barcelona, Dublin, Prague, Paris and Amsterdam are the most popular choices. 

Domestic holidays are always a popular option at this time of year with families heading to coastal resorts, cottages and campsites.

Airports around the country will be very busy with hundreds of thousands flying out from Heathrow, 308,000 from Gatwick, 192,000 from Stansted and 108,000 from Luton. Regional airports will also be busy with 220,000 departing from Manchester, 58,000 from Bristol Airport, 98,000 will depart from Edinburgh, 77,000 from East Midlands Airport and 13,000 from Southend.

Hundreds of thousands will also be travelling through the Ports and the Channel Tunnel.

Mark Tanzer, ABTA Chief Executive, said:

“The August bank holiday is one of the busiest of the year as we near the end of the summer and the school holidays. Temperatures around the Mediterranean are no longer at the record-breaking temperatures we saw last month and sunshine is virtually guaranteed. Many people will also be making the most of what the UK has to offer taking with weekends away or longer holidays to our coasts and countryside.

“As always at busy times of year for travel, if you are driving leave a little extra time to get to your place of departure and if using public transport check in advance for engineering works.”

For further information, contact:

Sean Tipton Media Relations Manager Tel: 020 3117 0513

Out of Hours:  Contact the Duty Press Officer via pager: 07623 951 339

Web: www.abta.com

Twitter: @ABTAtravel

Notes to editors

ABTA has been a trusted travel brand for over 65 years. Our purpose is to help our Members to grow their businesses successfully and sustainably, and to help their customers travel with confidence.

The ABTA brand stands for support, protection and expertise. This means consumers have confidence in ABTA and a strong trust in ABTA Members. These qualities are core to us as they ensure that holidaymakers remain confident in the holiday products that they buy from our Members.

We help our Members and their customers navigate through today's changing travel landscape by raising standards in the industry; offering schemes of financial protection; providing an independent complaints resolution service should something go wrong; giving guidance on issues from sustainability to health and safety and by presenting a united voice to government to ensure the industry and the public get a fair deal.

ABTA currently has around 1,200 Members, with a combined annual UK turnover of £37 billion. For more details about what we do, what being an ABTA Member means and how we help the British public travel with confidence visit www.abta.com.