Activity holidays form an important but diverse sector of the UK travel industry. The individual sectors of the activity holiday market are mostly niche in orientation, with the major exceptions of walking, skiing, golfing, sailing and watersports, which are large enough to attract a significant number of holiday takers to allow segmentation by price and quality.
Like all holidays, there is a contrasting difference between domestic activity holidays and activity holidays overseas. The domestic activity holiday market is much larger than the overseas activity holiday market in terms of number of holidays, but is smaller in terms of value. Domestic activity holidays tend to be shorter and organised independently compared with activity holidays abroad. Nevertheless, activity holidays in both markets are priced higher than the average holiday.
Due to the independent nature of most domestic activity holidays, the package holiday sector is not well established; in the main, the industry infrastructure that supports the domestic activity holiday structure is very small, with a few specialist operators providing packages and dedicated resources for specific activities. On the other hand, the industry structure for activity holidays abroad is larger and more developed. The package holiday sector of activity holidays abroad divides into three main types of operator: specialist activity operators, which are part of large mass-market operators; small activity holiday operators, which provide a range of activities across a range of locations; and niche dedicated operators, which specialise in specific activities. Although the size of the domestic packaged activity holiday market is small, there are some operators that provide both domestic and overseas packages.
A characteristic of the packaged activity holiday industry is the acquisition of niche activity operators in recent years by large tour operators, which developed specialist holiday divisions e.g. First Choice, TUI UK, Thomas Cook and Holidaybreak PLC.
The size and esoteric nature of the activity determines the channels of distribution used by domestic and overseas packaged activity holiday operators. More esoteric activities tend to be organised direct between the operator and prospective holiday taker. In these small niche sectors of the market it is often an association of activity participants that has developed its own tour operating company. Larger activities, such as skiing and golf, have become almost mass market in nature, particularly for overseas holidays.
Although the overseas packaged activity holiday sector is relatively well developed, there is a paucity of information on the market compared with the domestic sector, which relies mainly on information collected as part of the United Kingdom Travel Survey (UKTS). One of the reasons for the paucity of information is the highly fragmented nature of the market due to the range and diversity of possible activities. However, there is also a lack of information on the large activity sectors, due primarily to the competitive nature of these sectors and the reluctance of operators to share information.
It is easy to purchase access to the resources available from the library. Before purchasing you can view a summary of the document by clicking the summary link. Some documents and resources have sample chapters, extracts, tables of contents and reviews which you can view before buying. To proceed to purchase the document simply click the 'Buy' link.
After purchasing a resource you can return to it, via the Access button, as many times as you wish during the duration of the licence period
If you have purchased resources from us before and have therefore provided payment details to us, you will be taken through to a confirmation page so that you can confirm the transaction you are about to make. Click confirm and you will receive immediate access to the resource.
If you have never provided payment details to us, or your are not logged in, you will be taken to a Registration / Login page where you will be prompted to do so before you can make a purchase.
This section of our site is administered by our site managers, PracticeWEB / Sift Ltd. If you have any queries with regard to the information on this section, PracticeWEB / Sift Ltd will do its best to assist with these. To contact PracticeWEB / Sift Ltd with any such queries, please send an email to service@sift.co.uk.
Reports purchased through our website will appear on your credit card statement as follows. £ AWEB.TZ.CRM.SIFT ICC BRISTOL GB.
If you are paying by invoice it will be sent at the end of each month for any paid for resources you have purchased within that month. Our terms of payment are 30 days from date of invoice. In order to cover the additional administration involved in processing purchase orders, there is a minimum invoice amount of £20 (excluding VAT) for any month in which you have made a purchase. If you purchased a report using the purchase order option you will receive an invoice from AccountingWEB Ltd.
