The proportion of holidaymakers booking with a travel expert has risen by 4% to 38%, with a significant rise in younger family clients, according to Abta’s 2024-25 Holiday Habits report.
The survey of 2,000 consumers, at the end of July, showed a significant increase in holidaymakers wanting reassurance of having a travel professional – a travel agent and tour operator – to help them if something goes wrong. This rose from 34% to 43%.
The top reason given by consumers was ease of booking, which was given by 54%, up from 51% in last year’s report.
Other reasons, which all showed increases, were that it saved time (43%), it was value for money (39%), gave clients’ confidence (36%), and access to expert help and advice (35%).
Abta suggested the rise could be due to a number of factors, including wildfires to a UK air traffic control issue.
The report also showed young families and younger age groups were increasingly turning to travel professionals to book their holidays, a trend which has been continuing over the past five years.
In 2019, 36% of families with young children booked with a travel professional – this reached 55% this year. The proportion of 18 to 24 year olds who booked with travel professionals has also risen significantly from 36% in 2019 to almost half (48%) this year.
Package holidays continue to be the most popular way to travel overseas, according to the report released at the start of Abta’s Travel Convention at Costa Navarino in Greece.
Abta also found that the proportion of people who went on holiday over the past 12 months was the same as the year before (84%), yet the number of holidays taken per person rose.
People took an average of 3.94 holidays, up from 3.42 the previous year, marginally overtaking the previous peak of 3.91 in pre-Covid 2019.
Travellers also took more trips abroad, with an average of 1.7 trips per person up from 1.45 the previous year.
This suggests a trend of ‘habitual holidaymakers’, with people viewing holidays as important and having a firm commitment to travel, despite a prolonged period of higher living costs, according to the travel association.
The most prolific travellers were families and those under the age of 35, with 18–24-year-olds taking an average of 5.33 trips; 25-34 year olds going on 6.43 breaks and families with children over the age of five going on holiday 5.32 times during this period.
However, it families with young children aged under five took the most holidays, at an average of 6.49, up from 5.27 last year and more than 3.89 in 2019.
A limited window to travel is perhaps responsible for the increasing number of holidays taken by young families in the past couple of years, according to Abta.
Children in these families are likely to be now reaching school age, after having been babies during the pandemic and hence family holidays abroad were off limits for the first part of their lives.
Abta chief executive Mark Tanzer said: “Our latest Holiday Habits report shows travel is very much back to normal and in high demand.
“Our industry and its customers are once again dealing with the wide variety of operational challenges that can disrupt people’s plans with very little notice, be that natural disasters or technological disruption.
“While most people’s travels aren’t affected, there is clearly an increasing number of customers appreciating the reassurance of having an expert in their corner who can resolve any unexpected issues if needed.”
The most popular overseas destinations over the past 12 months and the percentage of people who went:
- Spain – 31%
- France – 22%
- Italy – 17%
- US – 15%
- Greece – 13%
- Portugal – 11%
- Germany – 11%
- Turkey – 10%
- Netherlands – 8%
- UAE – 6%
- Mexico – 6%
- Austria – 6%
- Australia – 5%
- Malta – 5%
- Croatia – 5%