The school holidays are just days away and easyJet Holidays has reported that the most popular summer destinations from the UK this summer are Malaga and Palma topping the list, as well as Faro in Portugal a firm favourite, for those seeking guaranteed sun, outstanding food, culture and natural beauty. Closer to home, Edinburgh followed by Belfast are the most popular domestic destinations for people travelling across the UK to friends and relatives during the summer holidays.
easyJet holidays will also see its busiest summer season ever, with customers enjoying a well-deserved getaway to the likes of Palma, Rhodes, Tenerife, Antalya and Dalaman; where the tour operator has sold more free kids places than ever before. The airline will see its busiest day of the summer season on 5th September when nearly 2,000 flights are set to take off with over 300,000 customers expecting to fly, as thousands of families across the UK return from their summer break while others jet off on their well-deserved holidays.
Sophie Dekkers, easyJet’s Chief Commercial Officer, said: “Every year, millions of customers continue to choose easyJet for the unrivalled choice of destinations we offer across our network, our great value fares and our crew’s fantastic service. And this year with more seats, new routes and package holidays, we’re offering more choice for customers than ever before, and we look forward to taking them away for a well-deserved holiday, always aiming to make travel easy.”
And Mallorca remains top despite sharp rise in prices and tough competition. The Post Office Travel Money Family Holiday Report, produced in partnership with the leading travel and leisure operator TUI, reveals that Turkey and Bulgaria are likely to be cheaper for bargain hunters than Eurozone destinations. The survey of resort costs in 16 European destinations found that prices have risen in 13 of them over the past year, while new research commissioned for the report reveals that spending on kids’ extras contributed to high levels of overspending by families on their last trip abroad.
In fact, Post Office Travel Money found that prices had risen in 13 of the 16 destinations once it converted the resort costs researched by TUI into sterling. The biggest increase of 21.4 per cent was in Mallorca, where barometer prices have increased to £201.672. They have also risen by 15.5 per cent in the Algarve to £143.56 but Portugal’s sunshine coast remains cheapest in the Eurozone and third-placed overall. However, there is now less than £1 between prices in the Algarve and fourth-placed Paphos. At £144.44, prices in the Cypriot resort have fallen by 1.2 per cent since last summer.
Key findings
Marmaris came out cheapest, even though prices there rose by over 10% since last summer
Sunny Beach in Bulgaria is now the second cheapest. Even though its prices are up 17%, it’s still almost 10% cheaper than the closest Eurozone resort. The Algarve in Portugal (3rd) is still the cheapest place in the Eurozone, but prices went up by 15%
Paphos in Cyprus (4th) is closing in on the Algarve, with total basket costs just under £1 more
Mallorca (15th) had the biggest price rise, with costs going up by 21%, Crete (7th) saw the sharpest price drop, by almost 8%. It’s moved up to seventh in the rankings
Lanzarote (5th) also got a bit cheaper, with costs falling by 2%. Ibiza (16th) is still the most expensive place in the survey. A holiday basket there costs £242.79, almost twice as much as in Marmaris. Prices went up in 13 out of the 16 European resorts checked. This reflects a broad trend of higher local costs.
Families spent an average of £202 on kids’ beach extras alone, a key factor driving holiday overspending