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One in two families planning an overseas holiday this year will travel in peak summer. Ian Taylor reports
TNS consumer research for Travel Weekly late last year found just over half of family households planning a holiday over the next 12 months (51%) would go away between July and September.
State schools in England and Wales broadly close from mid-late July to early September. Those in Scotland shut from mid-June to mid-August. Private schools tend to close from early July.
Fewer than one in five families with children under 16 were planning a holiday between April and June, and the same proportion (18%) planned a winter holiday.
The contrast with adults planning to travel without children is obvious from the chart (below).
Almost as many adults without children were planning holidays this winter (27%) as in summer (29%) and close to one in four (23%) were planning a holiday this spring. One in five (21%) of those without children were not sure when they would go away compared with nearer one in 10 (13%) with children, presumably because the latter feel compelled to book holidays within certain time periods.
Timing is crucial
The proportion of families planning peak-summer holidays appears not to vary much by the age of children, but the research suggests it is higher among those with schoolchildren (54%) than those with younger kids.
For example, almost one in four households with children aged three to five (22%) were planning a spring holiday.
Families were less likely than those without children to plan an overseas trip this year: 44% of all family respondents were ‘likely’ to have a holiday abroad (27% ‘very likely’) compared with 48% of adults without children (32% ‘very likely’).
The research confirmed price as a major reason: 39% of parents cited ‘the price of the holiday’ as the prime consideration when booking an overseas trip, making it the most-important factor. Almost as many adults without children considered price important (34%), but the choice of destination was a far more important factor among this group, identified as the prime consideration by 51%.
Family market on up
Families form a core market and one that appears to have performed better than the adult-only market last year. Industry analyst GfK reported summer 2013 bookings down 5% year on year to the end of September, but family bookings up 2%. The TNS survey suggests little difference in the level of package-holiday bookings among families (41%) and adults without children (43%).
But it does suggest a significant difference in the level of all-inclusive bookings. The research found 50% of households with children planning a holiday ‘very likely’ to book an all-inclusive this year and 70% ‘likely’, compared with 40% and 62% among adults without children.
These market ‘segments’ are large. Households with children at home make up about one-third of the UK adult population – about 15 million adults.
The research suggests these people may be half as likely as adults with no children to take more than one overseas holiday a year (11% against 20%).
But it also found families more likely to increase their spending on overseas holidays this year: 34% of those planning a holiday expected to spend more compared with 29% of other adults.
This was despite families appearing no more confident than other adults about the outlook for their household finances: 21% expected to be better off and 27% worse, against 19% better off and 24% worse among other adults.
TNS surveyed 2,001 adults in late October 2013