The dreadful May Public Holiday weather and driving rainstorm which met workforces on their way back to work on the Tuesday, following an extended weekend, has led to a hefty increase in bookings for vacations abroad. Many people it seems are trying to move away from the unpredictable weather of the UK and go somewhere with a sunnier clime. Over the course of the bank holiday and particularly around Tuesday lunch time, online travel websites like, First Choice, lastminute.com and Thomson experienced dramatic increases in online holiday bookings, some even by twenty percent .

The weather in the UK is a deciding factor in pushing British holiday makers abroad in record numbers again this year, bookings alone for winter breaks have dramatically increased and demand for short city breaks is ever growing. With the state of global financial anxiety in the UK at the moment, short city breaks are becoming fashionable with people not prepared to fork out for full price vacations. The average cost for a week’s holiday has recently been put at around two thousand pounds, according to a recent survey of around 3 thousand travellers abroad.

The small, city breaks, with cheap prices are rising in popularity, fuelled by costs of a fortnight abroad as opposed to shorter breaks, a recent survey by an online travel website, reported that over 18% of holiday makers are opting for these short city breaks as opposed to only 24% taking a fortnight or more.

A stark reason for the expansion in city breaks and lure of far away sunny destinations is due to the pound’s current standing against the Euro. The pound is relatively weak against the Euro, indeed at the moment, a Euro costs 78pence. This has led to traditional destination haunts like Spain and Cyprus take a decline in bookings with holiday makers looking at more cost effective alternatives in countries such as Romania, Morocco and Bulgaria where the pound is stronger.

One of these countries, Romania, have certainly noticed a steady increase of tourism to their seaside resorts and towns over the last few years. Last year alone the tourism market made 34 million Euros more compared to the last year. Although, many Britons choose to holiday now in eastern European countries, the infrastructure and facilities does not have enough fascination to make foreign tourists spend more money and so help their economy. Even still, the predictions for this year is that the number of tourists should increase by around 13-15%.

19% of holiday makers surveyed were also looking to visit destinations were the pound is strong. This means that the USA, with its weak dollar is particularly charming with cities such as New York, Orlando, LA and Vegas touted as would be break destinations.

To conclude the future uncertainty surrounding the strength of the pound against other currencies as well as escalating utility, fuel and mortgage payments, will certainly mean that holidays abroad to traditional destinations like Spain and Greece, become less and visits to eastern European cities like Bulgaria increase, from our need to get the most from our money in today’s hard financial environment.

Destinations Products on our marketplace

Lucy is a author commentating on UK Travel, such as Butlins Holidays for eComparison.