What you need to know
The number of holidays taken by UK travellers to France fell by an estimated 7.5% in 2019, dropping to 5.5 million trips, as consumers switched to value-for-money package holiday destinations. Since 2014 the number of visits has fluctuated between 6.2 million and 5.5 million. However, the value of holiday visits has steadily increased over this period, with average spend up by an estimated 27%. There has been a strong surge in people taking city breaks. Some 50% of visitors to France in the past five years have taken a city break, an increase from 39% in the five years to November 2017.
The escalation of the coronavirus is creating a very high degree of uncertainty for travel to all destinations in the coming months. Mintel’s current expectation is that holidays to France will fall during 2020 as a whole, although the scale and duration of the likely impact could vary widely. From 2021 onwards we expect volumes to recover, reaching 5.9 million holidays in 2024, with expenditure and average spend continuing to show an upwards trend.
France is seen as an expensive destination, particularly amongst lapsed visitors (those who have not been in the past five years). Amongst those who have been to France more recently, the destination is most likely to be seen as ‘authentic and unspoiled’. Future opportunities include rail travel – offering a greener and more comfortable option for a holiday abroad than flying – food and wine touring holidays, wellness travel and live event breaks.
Covered in this Report
This Report covers holidays taken by UK consumers to France. Holidays refer to overnight trips of at least one night made for leisure purposes. Trips for the purpose of visiting friends and family, business or other purposes are excluded. Data on the size of the domestic holiday market is for Great Britain and is sourced from GBTS. Data on the size of the overseas holiday market is sourced from IPS.
