Spain still the favourite holiday spot for British tourists

The great summer getaway is in full swing and the number crunchers have turned their attention to the changing pattern of Britain’s holidaying habits.

We are taking more breaks, according to figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), although the traditional fortnight's holiday is being replaced by shorter, more frequent trips abroad.

Fuelling the trend is the rapid rise of budget airlines such as Ryanair and EasyJet, which have brought affordable, more flexible travel to the wider population. Brits now prefer to take week-long trips and 10-day breaks, although our favourite destinations are largely unchanged from 20 years ago.

Spain remains by far the most popular destination for British holidaymakers. There were almost 13 million UK visitors to Spain last year, up from around seven million in 1996, an increase of almost 90 per cent.

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France is still the second most popular destination, followed by Italy, Portugal and the United States. Ireland is in eighth place and Germany has also made it into the top 10, as has cruising, reflecting the ageing population and also efforts by the cruise liners to broaden the appeal of the high seas to a younger clientele.

Two destinations to have dropped out of the top 10 are Belgium and Turkey.

In total, UK residents went on more than 45 million foreign holidays last year, up from 27 million in 1996. That’s still slightly below the numbers of a decade ago, before the global financial crisis struck, but is up almost 70 per cent up on 1996, compared with a 12 per cent increase in population over the period.

The Association of British Travel Agents (Abta) said the figures were a reflection of “how far we have come” in 20 years and underlined the importance of keeping similar agreements in place in a post-Brexit world.

Abta said the EU’s “open skies” regime had produced a 180 per cent increase in routes across the continent, fuelling the popularity of city breaks and pushing prices sharply lower.

“It is critical that the government maintains these important links and that holidaymakers can continue to travel freely and enjoy the important benefits currently open to them,” the association said.

The fall in the value of sterling has, of course, made foreign travel more expensive over the past 12 months, encouraging more Brits to settle for a staycation instead. The flipside of that currency effect has been a boost to the UK’s own tourism industry, with the number of bargain-hungry overseas visitors topping 37 million last year – the highest since records began in 1961.

The ONS data shows that, along with the two-week break, another British travel tradition is on the wane – the booze cruise. According to the figures, fewer than 400,000 day trips abroad were taken last year, compared with as many as two million 20 years ago.

Since duty free sales within the European Union ended in 1999, there's been little point for Brits to cross the channel to stock up on cheap wine and cigarettes - unless they just fancy a day out in a French hypermarché.

Estate agents in trouble

With estate agents regularly topping the lists of the nation’s most reviled professionals – along with bankers and politicians – few tears are being shed over the news that one in five of them is now at risk of going bust.

According to accountancy firm Moore Stephens, almost 5,000 high street estate agents are currently showing signs of “financial distress” as they battle for business against increasingly powerful online rivals.

Traditional estate agencies have contributed to their own demise by over-expansion in recent years, cannibalising their sales and saturating the increasingly crowded market.

But there’s another factor behind their current difficulties – a severe shortage of houses to sell.

According to the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, the number of properties on the market is at its lowest level in almost 30 years, leaving estate agents with an average of just 43 homes on their books.

Figures earlier this week from the Halifax, Britain’s biggest mortgage lender, put the annual increase in the three months to July at 2.1 per cent. This was the fourth quarterly slowdown of growth in a row and comparing with double-digit gains seen in early 2016.

The scarcity of property for sale is serving to prop up prices; given a proper supply of homes, the downturn would undoubtedly be even sharper.

Estate agents fearful for their jobs may be wishing they had more properties on their books. If they did, however, prices would swiftly head south – along with their commissions.

Fiona Walsh is business editor of theguardian.com