The terrible May Public Holiday weather and heavy downpours which met workers on their way back to work on the Tuesday, following an extended weekend, has led to a hefty increase in bookings for holidays overseas. Many UK residents it seems are trying to dodge the unpredictable weather of the UK and go somewhere with a sunnier clime. Over the course of the bank holiday and particularly around Tuesday lunch time, online travel websites like, lastminute.com, Thomson and First Choice experienced dramatic increases in online holiday bookings, some even by 22%.



The climate of the UK is a deciding reason in pushing British holiday makers abroad in record numbers again this year, bookings alone for winter breaks have dramatically increased and demand for short city breaks is ever growing. With the state of global financial insecurity in the UK at the moment, short city breaks are becoming popular with people not geared up to shell out for full price holidays. The average cost for a week's holiday has recently been put at around two thousand pounds, according to a recent survey of around two thousand travellers abroad.

The small, city breaks, with cheap prices are rising in popularity, stimulated by costs of 14 days abroad compared to shorter breaks, a recent survey by an online travel website, reported that over eighteen percent of holiday makers are choosing for these short city breaks as opposed to only 24% taking a fortnight or more.

A stark reason for the expansion in city breaks and enticement of far away sunny destinations is due to the pound's current standing against the Euro. The pound is not very strong against the Euro, indeed at the moment, a Euro costs 80p. This has led to traditional destination haunts like Cyprus, Greece and Spain take a decline in bookings with holiday makers looking at more cost effective alternatives in countries such as Romania, Morocco and Bulgaria where the pound is stronger.

One of these countries, Romania, have certainly noticed an influx of tourism to their seaside resorts and towns over the last couple of years. Last year alone the tourism market made 34 million Euros more than in the previous year. Although, many Britons choose to holiday now in eastern European countries, the infrastructure and facilities does not have enough fascination to make foreign tourists spend more money and so aid their economy. Even still, the predictions for this year is that the number of tourists should increase by around 12-16%.

Eighteen per cent of holiday makers surveyed were also looking to visit destinations were the pound is strong. This means that America, with its weak dollar is particularly charming with cities such as Las Vegas, Las Angeles and New York touted as potential break destinations.

All in all the upcoming uncertainty surrounding the strength of the Uk currency against other currencies as well as rising utility, fuel and mortgage payments, will certainly mean that holidays abroad to traditional destinations like Spain and Greece, become less and visits to eastern European countries like Bulgaria increase, from our need to get the most from our money in today's tough financial climate.