Travel: All you ever wanted to know about All-inclusives

Single European currency? Forget it. With an all-inclusive holiday, you don't need a single penny, peseta or pfennig. Club Med (0171-581 1161) has no monopoly on the cashless holiday - which is partly why the company has had fairly dismal financial results recently. Now the mass-market operators have moved in, four times as many of us take

all-inclusive holidays as took them in 1995.

All-inclusives let you budget more accurately; a zealous bargain-seeker could probably survive for a fortnight without spending a bean (or a bead). But they are inevitably divisive: fences must be built to prevent the beer and the buffet falling into the wrong hands. There is a financial disincentive to escape and see the world beyond the swimming-pool. All- pervasive all-inclusives commoditise travel, reducing it to an arbitrary sun, sea and sangria sin final experience. Check out the all-inclusive brochures issued by Airtours, Cosmos, First Choice, Thomson and Sunworld. If your travel agent seems inordinately keen to book you one, it could be because he or she earns 10 per cent on everything you eat and drink.

One brochure you won't find at the travel agent is the one issued by Club Mark Warner (0171-761 7000), a direct-sell operator that has specialised in high-quality all-inclusive holidays in the Mediterranean for much longer than the mass-market operators. The other all-inclusive location that I have particularly enjoyed is the original: Butlin's (0990 011011).