The bad UK weather is resulting in bumper late bookings for operators.
Online travel retailer lastminute.com has reported a “holiday booking frenzy” with consumers looking to escape for their holiday in the next three weeks.
Lastminute.com has witnessed an increase in week-on-week trading with traffic of unique visitors searching holidays up 23% over the last seven days when the weather rapidly deteriorated. Most searched departure dates include July 26 and 19 as well as August 2.
Meanwhile, tour operator Jet2holidays.com has reported a 48% increase in late sales for holidaymakers booking for July and August. Its own research has revealed two thirds of holidaymakers are planning late holidays to escape the bad weather. More than more 40% cited the bad Uk weather as the main reason they are escaping to destinations abroad ahead of the credit crunch.
Lastminute.com has revealed destinations performing very strongly this summer are mainly outside the euro zone with Egypt and Turkey sales up 14% year on year. Tunisia sales are up over 95% and Croatia is up a whopping 150%.