To celebrate the start of a new decade, online travel agent and tour operator, eShores, has looked at the holiday habits of holidamakers over the last twenty years, enabling them to plot their predictions for the next decade in travel.
The research found that there had been an average increase of 1.4% in the number of foreign holidays taken by British holidaymakers since 2000. Spending has increased by 87%, from £24.3 billion on foreign holidays at the turn of the century, to £45.4 billion in 2018. With new routes and different airlines taking hold, 2018 saw 114 million more passengers pass through our airports than in 2000.
As we welcomed in 2020, the travel agent looked back at some of the biggest events that have sparked change in travel. This included a change in habits when booking holidays, the days of Teletext and Ceefax are now long gone, replaced with online travel agents and direct booking, and natural disasters and world events that affected the industry.
They also charted the huge influence that social media has had on the way we approach travel and booking holidays. Exploring such changes as the launch of TripAdvisor, which went from humble beginnings above a pizza shop in Needham, Massachusetts to over 830 million reviews by the end of 2019.
Instagram has flourished since it was launched in 2010, enabling people to share stories and images of their travels. In the ten years since the launch of Instagram there was a 2.9% increase in foreign holidays for British travellers, with 29% more taken in 2019 than 2010. The Norwegian rock formation of Trolltunga had less than 1,000 visitors, by 2019 it had been tagged in over 100,000 Instagram pictures.
Using the average increase between 2010 and 2019, they were also able to plot the trend for the next ten years. This predicted a 37% rise in foreign holidays to 64,367,550 a year by 2030.
Gavin Lapidus, Co-Founder of eShores, commented on the video: “It might only seem like five minutes since we welcomed in the millennium, but so much has changed in that time. It’s strange to think that in 2000 we had no broadband, no Facebook or Instagram and many holidays were simple one destination package deals. The technological and social advances in the last 20 years have truly helped to shape our society and the travel industry.
“Using the average increase in the number of foreign holidays taken by the British public in the last ten years, we’ve been able to predict a further rise over the next decade. If things continue in the same way, especially with the influence of social media over people’s decision making, we’re likely to see a great decade for travel.”
