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Activity Holidays Market Assessment 2009
Key Note Publications Ltd, March 2009, Pages: 196
This report deals with the market for activity holidays, considered as part of the wider UK holiday market for travel both within the UK (domestic holidays) and holidays taken outside the UK (holidays abroad). Activity holidays are defined to include a number of activities, all of which involve some form of physical participation. They range from rock climbing, white-water rafting and sailing to horse riding and rambling. The most popular activities fall somewhere between these two extremes, and include cycling, trekking and golfing.
The term `activity holiday' is not applied to holidays such as ocean cruises, cultural tours or safaris — which, although they may involve visits to exotic or remote locations or cater for special interests, do not involve physical effort. This report does not cover activities that are incidental to the main reason for taking the holiday. For example, taking a walk along the seafront as part of a beach holiday does not constitute a walking holiday; nor does hiring a bicycle to travel to the beach qualify as a cycling holiday.
The firms supplying this market range from small specialist tour operators serving niche markets to subsidiaries of larger integrated travel companies, such as TUI and Thomas Cook Group (both of which are now German owned). In many cases, such subsidiaries started out as independent specialist operators, but were subsequently taken over by one of the larger players. In addition, many holidays — such as walking, cycling or fishing holidays — are organised by travellers who make their own independent arrangements.
Over the past 5 years (i.e. since 2004), the UK domestic holiday market, as measured both by the number of trips taken and spending on such trips, has been in decline, in continuation of a long-established trend. This is in contrast to the market for overseas holiday travel, which has been on a long-term growth trend. The situation is mirrored in the activity holiday market, where the overseas holiday sector has performed better than its domestic counterpart.
Despite this difference in the rate of development, the domestic activity holiday sector remains larger than the overseas sector when measured in terms of the numbers of trips — although, because of the much higher level of spending on overseas holidays, the positions in terms of total holiday spending are reversed.
There are some significant differences between the overseas and domestic activity holiday sectors with regard to the way in which the holiday product is distributed. Although the role of the retail travel agent — and, to a lesser extent, the tour operator — is currently under threat as it becomes easier for independent travellers to make their own travel and accommodation arrangements, travel agents still have a role in the overseas sector, particularly where the activity involved is of a specialist nature, requiring the services of a knowledgeable intermediary.
In contrast, independent travel arrangements have been the norm in the domestic holiday sector, and the retail travel agent has traditionally occupied only a minor role. However, domestic tour operations have been long established in the coach holiday sector and in some sectors of the activity holiday market — again, where specialist activities call for the services of specialist operators.
Here the trend is for the role of the retail travel agent to be undermined as the tour operators increasingly market their products direct to the customer, online, via their websites. One variation in this pattern is in the schools activity holiday market, where the school is frequently the intermediary between the traveller (the school child) and the activity holiday provider.
Expenditure on the advertising of domestic activity holidays is, in general, much lower than expenditure on the advertising of overseas holidays, mirroring the situation in the holiday market as a whole.
The competitive structure of the activity holiday sector is changing, with the overseas activity holiday operations of the independent tour operators becoming a target for the larger integrated travel companies such as TUI (incorporating First Choice and Thomson Holidays) and Thomas Cook (now merged with MyTravel). Many formerly independent activity holiday tour operators have been incorporated into specialist divisions, with products sometimes being rebranded, but in other instances retaining their former brand names.
Among specific issues dealt with in this report are safety and other legislation affecting school activity holiday and summer-camp operation, US entry requirements, the impact of terrorist activity on the activity holiday market, the implications of an ageing population for the sector and the environmental impact of activity holidays.
A key section of the report consists of an analysis of the findings of a survey conducted by NEMS Market Research on behalf of Key Note. This was based on a telephone omnibus survey of 1,002 adults, carried out in August 2008, which sought information about their patterns of taking activity holidays over the previous 5 years. Respondents were asked whether they had taken one or more activity holidays of various types over that period. The survey revealed that around a third of the sample had taken one or more such holidays, either within the UK or abroad, with domestic activity holidays being more popular than overseas ones.
The survey also enquired about respondents' intentions, asking whether those who had not so far taken such a holiday would consider doing so in the future. 18.9% of the sample gave a positive response to this question.
Key Note foresees a continuation of many of the trends identified in this report, but warns of the effect of the UK recession. The impact of this is likely to be more severe on the overseas sector in the short term, as travellers opt to save money by holidaying in the UK rather than abroad. However, this situation will probably be reversed as the economy resumes its growth pattern.
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