Last minute holiday bookings increase as people seek to escape terrible summer

A Salisbury travel agent has been taking more late bookings

Author: Aaron HarperPublished 14th Aug 2023

People are trying to escape the terrible summer the UK is having in 2023 with last minute holidays.

According to the Met Office, July was one of the wettest on record with an average of 140.1mm of rainfall across the month.

And this is driving an increase in last minute bookings to find some summer sun.

Salisbury travel agent Travellers World say they’ve been doing their fair share of late bookings.

“Our demographic is maybe slightly different to some of the High Street agents, but we have seen a certainly a demand for people wanting to escape, you know the terrible summer that we've been having,” Peter Eastaugh from Travellers World told us.

And even though demand did drive prices up earlier in the year, Peter told Greatest Hits Radio that they’ve settled to around the same level as a regular booking in 2022.

But it’s not just a case of ‘anywhere will do’, as Peter explains:

“We need to guide people to be a little bit selective because of what's happening with the weather.

“So whereas you know, people maybe would just say ‘oh, I don't mind where it is’ and summer would be reliable in the Med, but with what's going on with climate change and everything else, we would be avoiding certain parts of the Mediterranean.”

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