More Britons opt to holiday in UK this summer amid uncertainty over flights

Holiday companies have predicted a surge in bookings for UK summer breaks after a jump in interest from Britons fearful of flight cancellations linked to the Iran war.

Summer bookings are expected to rise in the coming weeks amid warnings of possible jet fuel shortages and resulting cancellations by airlines across Europe.

Raoul Fraser, the chief executive of Lovat, a holiday park operator with sites across south-west England, said traffic to its website had increased after reports of jet fuel warnings last week. “It is definitely having a positive impact for us,” he said.

“Our holidays bookings are up over 30% this year. It is a little bit like Covid, when people couldn’t get away and now they just want the certainty of a nice holiday in the UK.”

The holiday resort company Butlin’s, which has sites at Bognor Regis, Minehead and Skegness, said it was seeing “strong growth for the summer school holidays”.

However, its chief executive, Jon Hendry Pickup, said many families were still booking their holidays closer to the time, due to travel uncertainty and cost pressures.

“Normally we get somewhere in the region of 15% to 20% of people booking a holiday in the last four weeks before they come. Now it is roughly double that,” he said.

Jeremy Hipkiss, the managing director of the holiday parks company Landal UK, said: “Increasingly guests are choosing destinations closer to home that are easy to reach by car or public transport, giving them greater control over their plans.”

Hipkiss said that Landal’s parks in Cornwall, Scotland and Lincolnshire were “particularly popular”.

Peter Munk, the chief executive of Willerby, a specialist caravan manufacturer based in Hull, added that the cost of living pressure was also putting people off overseas travel. Inflation, which was steady at 3% in February, is expected to increase after the Iran war drove up global energy costs.

“It’s about the reality of inflation kicking off again,” he said. “Most people still want a holiday, so it might be that they have fewer days or move closer to home and not have that dream holiday.”

Travel spending fell in March for the first time since the pandemic travel restrictions lifted in 2021, dropping by 3.3%, according to data from Barclays. Spending on travel agents fell by 4.6%, airlines by 4.1%, and public transport by 2.9%.