Executive Summary

In 2000, expenditure on short breaks by UK residents reached £4.62bn (excluding international fares). This was higher than the previous year. Between 1996 and 2000, expenditure on short breaks rose and the increase was broadly in line with the growth in UK tourism demand over the period.

Short breaks are leisure trips of between 1 and 3 nights' duration and the two main short break sectors are domestic and outbound short breaks. Although domestic short breaks are much more important than outbound short breaks in terms of trips and, to a lesser extent, expenditure, outbound short breaks have increased their share of the market by value for many years. However, domestic short breaks have not lost share in terms of volume.

The average value of outbound short breaks has increased at a much faster rate than domestic short breaks, but most domestic short breaks use private transport. The percentage of domestic short breaks using private motoring has remained the same for some years.

Key Note estimates that expenditure on domestic short breaks by UK residents increased in 2000. This was despite poor weather, flooding, the fuel crisis in the second half of the year and the disruption of the rail network from October 2000. However, the opening of many new attractions for the Millennium year stimulated some short breaks.

Between 1996 and 2000, expenditure on outbound short breaks (excluding fares) increased. This was a faster rate of growth than the outbound market overall but short breaks have failed to increase their share of the outbound market since 1997. This is despite the development of low-cost air carriers and more regional air services. These developments have increased the outbound market for short breaks by air, while the market by sea and tunnel has registered marginal growth since 1997. The abolition of intra-EU duty free and fare increases to compensate were major factors in dampening the demand for short breaks by sea and tunnel.

Most short breaks are independently organised and therefore short break package operators account for a small percentage of the market. The share of packaged short breaks of the domestic and outbound markets is slowly falling as more people endeavour to organise their own short break trips. Nevertheless, after 2 years of slow growth, many package operators are predicting good growth rates in 2001.

One of the reasons for higher growth in the short breaks market compared with the long holiday market is that short break penetration among adults is increasing, as is the repeat factor. The holiday penetration of adults has fallen in recent years as the population has aged. Short breaks have a higher penetration among adults who are staying single.

Key Note forecasts that the market demand for short breaks will increase between 2001 and 2004. However, the growth will be slower than in previous years due mainly to a slowdown in the economy.

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