At Park Home and Holiday Living and Holiday Living magazines, we’re launching a brand new campaign calling on everybody to get behind the Great British holiday in 2024!
To help kickstart the 2024 holiday season, we are calling on holidaymakers and partnering businesses to support the UK leisure industry with a campaign to Fly the flag for the Great British Holiday in 2024.
A number of reports have now been released predicting what’s in store for the UK holiday market in 2024, with most indicating that, while the market is in a period of recovery, 2024 could still present challenges for a number of accommodation providers.
England’s tourism sector contributes £106 billion to the British economy (GDP) when its direct and indirect impacts are taken into account, such as the supply chain and service providers – and it supports 2.6 million jobs.
While Visit Britain predicts that inbound tourism will recover to 2019 levels by early 2025, the Domestic Sentient Tracker, which monitors domestic intent to take short breaks in the UK and abroad continues to outline the cost of living as the top barrier to taking domestic trips. So, inflationary pressures have meant that consumers would be likely to prioritise value for money, while the post-pandemic trend has been for holidaymakers to look for memorable experiences, with a growing trend in breaks that have a wellness aspect built-in.
Sauchope Links Park
From a park and leisure home perspective, this has played to sector strengths, according to our sister title, Park Home & Holiday Living Editor Alex Melvin; “British holiday parks have already been working hard to be competitive in the experience-led arena, with many offering entertainment, a range of great activities on park and rambling areas to help families enjoy the benefits of coastal or countryside locations.”
Talking about holiday home sales, Holiday Living Editor Bella Brodie said; “The feedback is that buyers are taking a more cautious approach to buying a holiday home, so parks have had to adjust their strategy accordingly, with many incorporating stock into hire fleet. The park and leisure industry is known for cyclical peaks and troughs, but, like all other sectors, the past few years have been a real mix of opportunity and challenge, with the tide turning quickly. Just as the surge in development and manufacturing production came to fruition, waning consumer spending has undoubtedly had an impact on holiday home sales for ownership.
She continued; “We are already seeing things start to pick up on the lodge ownership side. Hopefully, as inflation is brought under control, this situation will head back on track as we head towards 2025 so we can afford a bit of optimism, but it may take a few months for the impact to be felt. So, instead of new orders predominantly heading towards the holiday home ownership route, there’s more of a buzz than usual in the fleet model sales and entry-level categories. As usual, manufacturers have responded quickly to these shifting market forces by looking at how to offer added value in holiday homes designed for fleet hire. The result for short-stay consumers is that the accommodation now offered on holiday parks is now more appealing than ever.”
Alex Melvin concluded, “At the end of 2023, we were sad to see one or two parks cut back on staffing for some truly great experiences they had developed within their locations over the past few years. Fortunately, that hasn’t been widespread, and parks are working as hard as ever to ensure guests have the best experience ever as they head into the 2024 season. As many of these are pet-friendly locations offering great value for money, they remain a great choice for those looking for a hassle-free holiday in the UK. British holidaymakers have undoubtedly fallen back in love with the British staycation in the past couple of years, for good reason, but for those now splitting their stays and thinking of venturing back abroad, we would just ask them to keep some of their precious holiday spend in the UK to support Britain’s tourism sector in 2024 to help see the recovery through into 2025. For partner businesses, we would also ask them to consider displaying the campaign logo saying they are joining us in flying the flag for the Great British Holiday on their broadcast channels.”
Park Home & Holiday Living and Coast are part of the Kelsey Media publishing group, which has a portfolio of over 80 multi-media brands including a range of lifestyle-related magazines, such as Outdoor Fitness, The Great Outdoors, Psychologies and Top Sante.
As part of the move to support the Great British Holiday, Kelsey Media will continue to Fly the flag for the Great British Holiday, encouraging their partners and readers to get on board to support UK tourism firmly in 2024.
HOW TO HELP – JOIN OUR CAMPAIGN!
You can download a copy of the logo here or feel free to save it from our online channels and re-share it on your own. The idea is to share it as much as possible to encourage anyone in the process of booking their holidays for 2024 to include at least one Great British holiday in their plans if possible to help support the leisure sector, parks, manufacturers and associated suppliers and services.
