Brits browse holidays to banish winter blues

LONDON, England – It seems Brits just can’t wait to get away from it all this year, with more consumers then ever going online to book or get inspiration for their holidays. Thomson.co.uk reported its biggest ever January with page views up 11% year on year.

Traditionally it has been the third weekend in January that’s been the biggest weekend for bookings. However, this year consumers were straight off the mark after Christmas and the 8th January was the biggest ever day for the Thomson website in terms of searches and bookings.

This January consumers were not only researching their summer holidays, but also looking to get some winter sunshine. The page for Thomson holidays departing in the next six weeks had the biggest number of views of all the pages, with 1,023,306 impressions, up 26% for the same period last year. The most popular winter sun destinations were Tenerife, Sharm el Sheikh and Mexico.

The Canary Islands and the Balearics were our most popular destinations for summer as consumers look to go back to destinations they know and love. Thanks to the falling rate of the Euro, Spain will be more affordable for our customers once they are there.

Whilst the traditional Costa destinations proved most popular with consumers up and coming destinations also fared well. Cape Verde was the seventh most searched for destination for Thomson, and as predicted searches for Croatia were up 55% year-on-year for Thomson.

“It seems that British consumers are keener than ever to get away this year,” says Nick Longman, Distribution and Online Director for Thomson. “While customers are of course looking for value, quality is more important to them as they want to ensure that their hard earned cash is spent on a holiday that will wow them.

“We are also seeing a multi-channel trend across retail and online, customers are coming into our shops having already researched their holidays through our website or on TripAdvisor.