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Activity Holidays Market Assessment 2006
Key Note Publications Ltd, Feb 2006
This Market Assessment report covers the market for activity holidays, which are defined to include a wide variety of events that involve some form of physical exertion, ranging from rambling and fishing to white-water rafting and mountain climbing. The most popular activities fall somewhere between these two extremes, and include cycling, trekking, golfing and sailing. The term `activity holiday' is not applied to holidays such as ocean cruises, cultural tours or safaris which, although they involve visits to exotic or remote locations or cater for special interest groups, do not involve physical effort.
To qualify as an activity holiday in this report, the events engaged in should constitute the main reason for taking the holiday rather than being incidental. For example, taking a walk along the seafront as part of a beach holiday does not qualify the trip as a walking holiday, and hiring a bike to travel to the beach does not constitute a cycling holiday. Activity holidays are considered as part of the wider UK holiday market for travel both within the UK — domestic holidays — and holidays taken outside the UK — abroad holidays.
The firms supplying this market range from small specialist tour operators serving niche markets to subsidiaries of large integrated travel companies, such as First Choice. In many cases, such subsidiaries began as independent specialist operators, but were subsequently taken over by one of the larger players.
Over the past 5 years (since 2001), the UK domestic holiday market, as measured by both the number of trips taken and expenditure on such trips, has been in decline. In contrast, the abroad holiday travel market has been relatively buoyant, despite a number of extraneous events. These include the events of 11th September 2001, the foot-and-mouth epidemic, the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) scare and the terrorist attacks in London in July 2005.
In both the domestic and abroad markets, activity holidays have fared better than average over the past 5 years in terms of both value and volume: activity holidays in the domestic market remained static rather than experienceing a decline, whereas such holidays in the abroad market grew at a faster rate than the market as a whole.
Although the number of domestic activity holidays taken currently exceeds the number of abroad activity holidays, the much higher level of expenditure on abroad holidays means that the positions in terms of total holiday spending are reversed.
The use of the various distribution channels varies greatly between the domestic and abroad sectors of the activity holiday market, with retail travel agents used to a far greater extent by purchasers of abroad holidays than those who buy domestic holidays. In general, this situation reflects the differences that are seen across the whole of the UK travel market, although one significant difference arises in the schools activity holiday market. In this instance, the school is frequently the intermediary between the traveller (the school child) and the activity holiday provider.
In general, advertising expenditure on domestic activity holidays is much lower than that on overseas holidays, which mirrors the situation in the holiday market as a whole. This is mainly because in the domestic market, the majority of holidays are arranged independently without the need for the participation of a travel agent.
As with the wider UK travel market, the Internet has led to a significant change in the way in which customers find out about, and purchase, an activity holiday. This use of the Internet is threatening the role of both retail travel agents and tour operators. Tour operators in particular have fought back, using the Internet as a marketing tool in competition with aggressive transport principals, notably low-cost airlines such as easyJet and Ryanair, which currently make a very high proportion of their sales via the Internet.
Specialist tour operators that serve the abroad activity holiday market are somewhat less vulnerable than those that serve, for example, the specialist city breaks sector. This is because it is more difficult for travellers to adopt a DIY approach to the creation of an activity holiday package, where the relevant leisure interest requires a much greater degree of organisation. However, retail travel agents continue to have a much harder time of it, even in this sector.
A key section of this report comprises an analysis of the findings of a survey conducted by NEMS Market Research, which examined the activity-holiday taking patterns of 1,013 adults in Great Britain over the past 5 years. Over this period, just over a third (36%) of respondents had taken one or more such holidays, either within the UK or abroad, with domestic holidays being the most popular. 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. The result was that almost as many respondents indicated that they would consider such a holiday in the future as had done so in the past, and similar results were obtained for both the domestic and abroad activity holiday sectors.
Over the next 5 years (2006 to 2010), it is forecast that there will be a continuation of many of the trends that are identified in this report. In particular, the UK's economic background is likely to support the continued growth in the abroad activity holiday sector, although the number of domestic holiday trips is expected to remain virtually static to 2010.
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