UK Travellers are adventurous Travellers
By Darren Cronian on Tuesday, September 12th, 2006

Today, I thought I would have a look at some tourism stats on the National Statistics Office website and found out that in the 12 months ending July 2006 visits abroad by UK residents rose by 3% from 65.8 million to 67.7 million.

UK Holidaymakers are adventurous Travellers

The number of visits to Western Europe increased by 1% (to 50.7 million), visits to North America decreased 6% (to 4.7 million) but rose to other parts of the world by 13% (to 12.3 million).

These stats show that UK residents are becoming more adventurous and are slowly moving away from the traditional Western European beach holiday and more towards long haul destinations – the introduction of low cost airlines in Asia I think will only increase the 13 per cent who travelled to other parts of the world.

It made me think, if I was booking a long haul holiday, would I use a travel agent or book and organise the holiday myself. I can see it being cheaper organising it myself, but would I want to travel to the other side of the world without any protection from ABTA.

Will travel agents and operators use this to their advantage?

I’m not a marketer, but it seems to me from an outsider looking in that it has taken two or three years for travel agents and operators to realise the potential of the Internet – independent travel agents seem to have picked up the technology much quicker, so will long haul travel help save high street travel agents from extinction?


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9 responses to “UK Travellers are adventurous Travellers”

Sandy | 13 September, 2006 at 11:13 pm

Interesting that you are more concerned about ABTA protection for long haul, than for channel- hopping. Is this because of the extra cost, or the distance you would be travelling?

I would risk booking my own long-haul trip now, but only because I have travelled to several long haul destinations in the past (albeit these trips were booked with a travel agent).

Interestingly sometimes a travel agent can get a better deal on flights and car hire, than the so-called cheap deals. Just shows you should look at all the options each trip doesn’t it?

Darren Cronian | 13 September, 2006 at 11:24 pm

Sandy, it’s because of the distance - if anything happened in mainland Europe, I’d not be too worried about getitng a flight back, or finding some alternative way of getting back home, but if your in Asia, the cost and distance would worry me if anything went wrong.

Sandy | 14 September, 2006 at 9:13 am

I take your point Darren, just shows what a need there is for a fully comprehensive insurance for travellers, which would cover each separate part of the trip. I’ve not found one yet.

Anyone know of one?

Darren Cronian | 15 September, 2006 at 4:22 pm

Can you explain what you mean by a full comprehensive insurance Sandy?

Sandy | 15 September, 2006 at 5:18 pm

Darren,

Perhaps fully comprehensive can’t really apply to travel in the same way it does for car insurance, as there are so many variables.

The advice I give to my guests is:

“We would strongly recommend that you take out a Travel Insurance Policy, which includes cancellation and curtailment expenses for both accommodation and flights/car rental”

That’s about as comprehensive as it needs to be, but having searched through loads of different insurance companies myself it is not easy to ensure cover for all this in one policy. The small print is quite misleading in a lot of policies.

The average person tends to go on holiday for one or two weeks - I can’t begin to tell you the problems you hit when you try to book for a really long stay, and as for becoming a senior citizen (not me just yet) - well forget it - obviously older people should have more sense than to want to go on hoilday!

Interestingly the person I was trying to insure has 3 ‘medical conditions’. For these same conditions some insurers chaged a premium, some said it was not necessary, and some said they would provide cover for everything except those conditions (mighty dangerous thing to do I would say). The premium also varied from company to company.

Darren Cronian | 15 September, 2006 at 10:57 pm

Good points Sandy, maybe this is a question we need to direct to Sarah @ Go Travel Insurance. I’ll point her to this blog entry, and she might be able to give some suggestions.

Sandy | 15 September, 2006 at 11:45 pm

Great Darren,

Any help with making travel insurance easier and more comprehensive has got to be a good thing.

Carol Long-McDonald | 16 September, 2006 at 7:00 am

It still amazes me just how many folks travel without insurance!! We had to “bail out” recent guests at our villa in Florida when their son fell and needed an x-ray. $700 was the charge….guess what??? no insurance. OK we got the money back as soon as they returned to UK. but what sort of fool brings kids to USA without insurance - they though NHS wouls have some agreement with US!! Some people should have passports confiscated for their own good.

Hunter Cashdollar | 5 October, 2006 at 3:36 pm

People should have travel insurance. however, the USA is the only place so uncivilized that medical practicioners will just let you die if you can’t pay. it doesn’t work that way in Europe or anywhere else, so one can see why average European tourists would not anticipate running into a situation like that. Hunter Cashdollar

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