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Wet and cold August brings surge in last-minute travel
A wet August prompted a surge in last-minute travel, according to the latest spending figures from Barclaycard.
Based on its data, travel spending jumped 7% as consumers supplemented their already-booked breaks with additional shorter trips.
The number of travel transactions jumped 28%, with hotel bookings up 10.5%, and airline spending 4.4% higher.
Barclaycard, which processes nearly half of all credit and debit card transactions in the UK, said the cold temperatures and above-average rainfall helped continue an above-average performance with growth of 8.1% this summer, more than double the 3.2% seen over the same period last year.
Last summer, growth in spending on travel, which includes holidays, airlines and hotels, peaked at 5.3% in August.
But this summer travel-related transactions doubled, leading to growth of 10.3% in June, 6.9% in July and 7% cent last month.
Barclays believes there was a surge in last-minute travel as Brits booked additional shorter trips to escape the British washout.
These, often-shorter and therefore cheaper, trips led to a 15.3% fall in the average transaction value for travel spend this summer.
With airlines reporting higher load factors, and therefore not needing to cut fares to sell the last of the summer’s seats, the average transaction value for airline spending was down just 0.4% this summer, compared to 7.6% last year.
Meanwhile, the number of hotel transactions was 10.5% higher in August, and is up 11.4% over the past three months.
Chris Wood, chief operating officer at Barclaycard said: "The number of travel transactions jumped 28% last month – a record for August – helping drive a 7% increase in spending on holidays and family trips.
“This is being driven by shorter, cheaper trips, which is shown in the lower average spend.”
Bev
Editor in chief Bev Fearis has been a travel journalist for 25 years. She started her career at Travel Weekly, where she became deputy news editor, before joining Business Traveller as deputy editor and launching the magazine’s website. She has also written travel features, news and expert comment for the Guardian, Observer, Times, Telegraph, Boundless and other consumer titles and was named one of the top 50 UK travel journalists by the Press Gazette.
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