Family Christmas holiday bookings to Canary Islands surge after rule of six announced

Company sees 97 per cent bookings spike

There's been a surge in bookings for multi-generation holidays abroad after rule of six was announced (Getty Images)

Bookings for multi-generational holidays over the Christmas period have surged after the rule of six was announced, according to a leading package holiday company.

Teletext Holidays said that it saw a 97 per cent spike in bookings during the second week of September compared to the previous week.

It also saw a 164 per cent increase in the number of passengers as well as a 26 per cent growth in the average size of the groups travelling together.

The top selling destination was the Canary Islands, despite the fact that they remain on the government’s no-go and quarantine lists.

Wayne Perks, managing director of Teletext Holidays, said: "Looking at the booking data, we can see a definite trend of people gearing up for a big family Christmas in the sun, with several generations planning to travel abroad together, since the 'rule of six' was announced.

"The most popular Christmas destinations for our customers are currently the Canary Islands, followed by Egypt, Malta and Dubai.”

He added: "We are surprised by the surge in bookings, which came since the announcement, and despite current FCO advice, people are obviously hoping that more travel corridors will soon open, and in particular there seems to be a real appetite for people to spend some quality time with their extended family, whilst enjoying the warmer weather."

Turkey has also seen a surge in interest from British travellers as it becomes one of the few destinations left on the travel corridors list.

Skyscanner said that Istanbul, Dalaman and Antalya are now in its top 10 most-searched destinations for the first time for the month of September.

In fact, searches for those destinations have gone up by 115 per cent between the last two weeks of August (12 to 31) and the first two weeks of September (1 to 14).

Holiday comparison site TravelSupermarket has seen similar spikes in interest for package holidays to Turkey.

For the week of 8 to 15 September, 30 per cent of all package holiday comparison searches for departure between 11 September and 31 October were for Turkey.

This time last year the number was just eight per cent, and it’s now generating more searches than Greece (15 per cent) and Italy (10 per cent) combined.