British holiday parks enjoy ‘purple patch’

British holiday parks enjoyed a “purple patch” last year, drawing a record six million people last year, according to a survey. A report by the research group Mintel found that such organisations as Butlin’s, Pontin’s and Center Parcs had a very busy year last year, helped, of course, by the record-breaking summer enjoyed in Britain. The Daily Telegraph newspaper, citing the Mintel report, states that more than a million people stayed at Butlin’s three camps last year, and that the company is expecting a 10 per cent increase on that number in 2004. Mintel also discovered that 26 per cent of adults in the UK have stayed at a holiday camp in the last two years. The trend, the newspaper suggests, is also being fuelled by the fact that people tend to have more holiday entitlement than they used to, which allows them to take short breaks as well as a “main” holiday. Martin Dalby, chief executive at Center Parcs, is quoted as saying that 90 per cent of the company’s bookings were “short breaks” adding that the typical customer was “two adults with two kids who pay £400 to stay in a villa, and don’t want to drive more than two and a half hours to get here”. Report by Tim Gillett, News From Abroad