Holiday bookings abroad down by 10%

Many British tourists gave their favourite holiday destinations a miss this summer, according to figures released today. Nine out of ten of our preferred summer resorts experienced a drop in UK visitors.

America faced the steepest decline, with a 33 per cent fall in British visitors. Cyprus experienced an 18.7 per cent slump and Tunisia saw numbers plunge by 19.3 per cent.

But the Dominican Republic bucked the downward trend to attract 115,488 visitors – an increase of 16.4 per cent. The figures, based on bookings for summer 2002 made through UK travel agents to the end of August, were compiled by the holiday company, First Choice.

The figures revealed that by July, around 9.3 million Britons had booked summer package holidays, a drop of around 900,000 or just under 10 per cent compared with last year.

Though Spain enjoyed its usual status as the most popular destination for Britons with 4.08 million bookings, this figure was still 7.1 per cent lower than reservations for the previous summer. Greece came second with 2.19 million (a 2.6 per cent decline), while Turkey attracted 523,701 British tourists in fourth place (a 5.2 per cent fall). Cyprus was third.

Portugal, France and Italy, which also feature among the top 10 countries, were hit by the "stay at home" tendency. The figures, released at the annual convention of the Association of British Travel Agents (Abta) in Cairo, came as little surprise to travel executives.

Sean Tipton, an Abta spokesman, said: "Bookings worldwide fell by 20 per cent in the direct aftermath of 11 September and we know this will not go away immediately.

"But it was a one-off year and the booking pattern for the summer indicated that there was a gradual rise in bookings, especially by August," he said.

The industry's gloom has been deepened by the bomb attack in Bali, which is expected to have a disastrous effect on tourism in South-east Asia.

* Many families may switch their traditional August break to October if proposals to shorten school summer holidays are approved, according to First Choice. The changes could mean a two-week half term in October and a fixed two-week break in April.