2.1 million holidaymakers to head overseas 

ABTA – The Travel Association estimates 2.1 million British holidaymakers are set to head overseas over the Easter Bank Holiday weekend of 19 – 22 April, with Good Friday the busiest day for travel. 

Many will travelling abroad looking for guaranteed sunshine. Spain is once again the UK’s favourite foreign holiday destination for the weekend, with Malaga, Alicante and the Canary Islands the most popular regions and temperatures this weekend are set to reach 21C in Malaga, 23C in Alicante and 23C in Gran Canaria. 

Turkey will also be busy, with holidaymakers enjoying sunshine and 23C, while Egypt is another popular choice for sun seekers – with temperatures of 31C predicted in Hurghada. Britons will be travelling even further afield in the search for sun as ABTA Members report that Mexico, Cape Verde and Florida are selling well. 

Many more are taking advantage of the double Bank Holiday weekend to spend time enjoying galleries, restaurants and nightclubs on a city break with Amsterdam, Barcelona, Paris, New York, Budapest and Rome all having sold well. 

This time of year is always a popular time for UK breaks, particularly for families. ABTA members are reporting good levels of booking for UK breaks with many customers travelling to seaside resorts such as Bournemouth, Eastbourne and Llandudno where they will bask in unseasonably high temperatures of over 20C.

Airports are in the South East are reporting strong numbers with hundreds of thousands leaving from Heathrow, 275,000 from Gatwick, 175,000 from Stansted and 105,000 from Luton.   

Regional airports will be busy, with 160,000 leaving from Manchester, 28,000 from East Midland Airport and over 100,000 from Edinburgh airport. 

Other regional airports, ferry terminals and the Channel Tunnel will also be extremely busy over the weekend with thousands booked to travel by Eurostar this weekend. 

Mark Tanzer ABTA Chief Executive said: 

“Easter is always one if the most popular times of year for travel and over the long weekend millions of holidaymakers will be taking either an overseas or a domestic break. The fact that Easter falls so late this year means that there is a good range of short haul destinations, offering good temperatures and guaranteed sunshine. 

“Many customers will also be looking to book their summer holidays this weekend – and there is great deal of choice and availability for good value breaks in popular destinations, including the Canary Islands, Spain, Portugal, France, Greece and Italy.  

“As always on a busy bank holiday leave plenty of time to get to your departure port and check for engineering work and line closures if using public transport.”

For further information, contact:
020 3117 0596 or press@abta.co.uk
Sean Tipton, Media Relations Manager, tel: 020 3117 0513 

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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.