Brits’ Holiday Searches Explode the ‘Sandals and Socks’ Stereotype

It looks as if the stereotype of the unadventurous Brit loudly demanding chips in English on the Costa del Sol is a thing of the past, according to the latest research from Cheapflights.

Its most recent Rising Stars report has examined the data from reams of flight searches in the first six months of the year. It found that the desire for cheap holidays was only matched by Britons’ desire to try somewhere new and exciting – with the urge to make their budgets go further dovetailing perfectly with their casting their net wider than ever before.

Cheap Turkey holidays have shot up in popularity in the first half of this year, with searches for flights to Bodrum surging by an unbelievable 971 per cent. Second place went – somewhat unexpectedly – to the northern Iraqi town of Erbil, which enjoyed a 504 per cent increase in searches. This can be laid at the door of the region’s relative stability and recent investment in the tourism sector, building upon the influx of business travellers over the past few years. The tropical beach destination of Kona in Hawaii saw a 110 percent increase, taking it to third place and fourth and fifth place went to Hangzhou in China and Sapporo in Japan, which saw an 87 per cent and an 80 per cent increase in searches respectively.

Such diverse and far-flung choices of destination seem to show that the concept of the stolid, “socks and sandals” Briton Abroad is a thing of the past. Although Spain holidays and trips to Europe remain popular, most Brits think nothing of jetting off to increasingly unusual and far-flung locations, and are very happy to listen to friends and family who have returned from holidays in the Middle East, the Far East and elsewhere if it means they will have an enjoyable and good value break.