Election Survey Finds Britons’ Holidays Linked to Political Preferences

 

Who would have thought that who you will vote for in the general election is strongly linked to your choice of holiday destination?

Well, apparently it is—we’ve surveyed over 2000 holidaymakers and found the link. Tory voters love the Canary Islands and the Balearics, especially Ibiza, Labour voters love Greece, UKIP supporters are off to Egypt, Lib Dems like to play it safe and the Greens are going long haul.

17.8% of Labour voters surveyed are planning to go to Greece, making it the Reds’ favourite choice.

Conservative favourite spot is the Canary Islands, with 12.77% of Tories surveyed saying they had plans to head there next… followed not-too-distantly by the Balearics, particularly Ibiza, which makes us wonder: If the cocktails are good enough, does the debt crisis matter? David Cameron, well-known Ibiza fan, seems to think not…

It seems that mainland Spain isn’t quite so popular with the Tories; they are 60% less likely than the other main parties to holiday there. 12% of Tory voters surveyed are looking to travel outside common tourist destinations to discover something different—it seems that the Tories are pulled between wanting familiar beaches and trying to shake things up a bit.

There were some real surprises in the results: Unexpectedly, given the party’s image problem amongst British Muslims, the most likely voters to go to Egypt are UKIP followers.  Meanwhile, one would think that the Green Party voters would be conscious of their carbon footprint—but they are actually more likely than any other voters to travel long haul. Greens are over twice as likely to fly to the USA as Labour, UKIP, or those who say they don’t plan to vote. They are also eight times more likely to travel to Australia as Labour, and over twice as likely to head to South Pacific as their next most keen competitors, UKIP. Let’s hope they’re buying carbon offsets as frequently as they’re buying flights!

Liberal Democrat Voters are most likely to “staycation” and enjoy the UK holiday destinations. The Lib Dems favourite European destination is Italy with over 15% of the Liberal voters choosing this destination – leaps and bounds ahead of other party followers.  Obviously, the Yellow Voters like their creature comforts and good food and wine.

Green voters appear to be the least organised, with nearly 10% of those surveyed having no holiday plans as of yet, closely followed by UKIP. The most organised and ready to go are the Labour voters.

Neither Labour nor Liberal Democrats are looking to go to Morocco; similarly, they are the least keen for a getaway to Tunisia (where non-voters and champing at the bit to visit, with 6% of those polled saying they are planning to visit Tunisia next).

Ian Crawford, Marketing Manager of Holiday Hypermarket spoke about the results: “We thought there might be a correlation, but we were quite taken aback with some of the results. The proportions of survey respondents voting for each of the major parties is in complete alignment with the current polls, and it helps us gain a glimpse into what sort of factors affect Britons’ travel decision.”

That, and it’s just plain good fun to see where we’re heading—politically and personally—on May 7.