In this report, Key Note reviews current developments in the UK short-breaks market, dealing both with breaks taken within the UK and with those spent abroad.

The short-breaks market has, over the past 5 years or more, grown more rapidly than the UK travel market as a whole. Short breaks offer the opportunity to those who lead busy lives, but who cannot afford to take extended periods of time away from their work, to recharge their batteries. Other short-break products are targeted at other groups, including families with children and those pursuing particular hobbies or sporting or other interests.

The availability of reasonably-priced short breaks, particularly those taken abroad, has been facilitated by the liberalisation of air-transport markets and increased competition between surface-transport operators. Such developments have led to the emergence of low-cost airlines such as easyJet, buzz and Ryanair, and of alternatives to the cross-Channel ferries provided by the car-carrying shuttle services operated by Eurotunnel.

Domestic short breaks are far more likely than outbound breaks to be organised independently by the travellers themselves, without the participation of either tour operators or retail travel agents. However, some operators have succeeded in penetrating this market, notably the coach-tour companies, specialist tour operators and hotel groups.

The channels used to distribute short-break products are, in general, the same channels as those used to distribute most other products of the UK travel industry. Tour operators and retail agents both carry out functions in the distribution of short-break products that are similar to those they perform for the other sectors of the UK holiday market.

As for the industry as a whole, there are close links between the large tour operators that supply many of the short-break travel products covered in this report and the retail agents responsible for their distribution. Retail agents typically sell travel products across the entire range, including short breaks, whereas the tour operators themselves are normally more segmented.

Significant changes are taking place in booking patterns, and there is considerable evidence of the increasingly important role played by the Internet, both as a means of providing information about short-break products, and as a facility for making online bookings. Internet sales are apparently increasing their share of holiday bookings formerly made directly, by telephone or mail, and of those formerly made through a travel agent.

However, this development still has a long way to go before the services of the UK travel trade are dispensed with. Where the Internet has the greatest potential role is in the booking of trips by air and other modes of transport, and the making of hotel reservations, both at home and abroad.

Exclusive research, commissioned from NOP by Key Note, has identified many of the factors influencing the decision to take a short break, the most important of which were ’value for money’ and ’the destination itself’. The report also analyses variations in these and other responses according to the demographic characteristics of those interviewed.

The report concludes with a review of prospects for growth in the
short-breaks sector in the light of foreseen developments in the political, social and business environment.