British travellers are spending more money on trips carried out due to obligation, than on actual holidays, according to Hotwire, a travel discount site.
The survey has reported that British travellers spent around £16 billion during the last twelve months on trips that they felt obliged to take, including weddings and family celebrations. This equates to an average of £466.80 per person on these, so called, obligation trips, which means that from a financial standpoint these trips account for around 25 percent of an individual’s travel budget.
The cost of travel and accommodation has decreased for such trips by around 40 percent, from an average £222 per person in 2011, to £131 pounds per person in 2012. On average, British travellers have taken around two obligation trips in the past 12 months, involving a total of four days annual leave, to attend weddings, stag and hen parties and other social functions.
Fulvia Montresor, the travel expert at Hotwire.com, said, ‘With nearly 25 percent of travel budgets spent on trips people feel they should take, rather than those they really want to make, more and more Brits will be looking at ways to make their travel budgets go further. For those people who’d like to celebrate an occasion with friends and family in style, but don’t want to bankrupt their nearest and dearest, picking a destination that’s in its low-season and/or being flexible on location, and booking on discount sites like Hotwire(R) will give them the best chance of bagging a great deal.’