It’s the summertime and the weather is occasionally fine, which means one thing: holiday season. Last year the cool thing to do in recession hit Britain was to stay in the UK, but is this still the case and where are Brits planning on heading to for their 2011 holiday? 

Well according to NVision research, approximately 25% of UK citizens plan to stay in their resident country. With the exception of the Netherlands this is the lowest percentage out of all the EU27 countries. This research also indicates that only a tiny percentage of Brits are planning to forget holidays all together. When looking at this alongside the fact that Heathrow Airport has just recorded its busiest June on record it can be inferred that people are ditching the staycation in favour of other countries.

So, if UK citizens aren’t in the UK where are they going? According to Easyjet Spain is the most popular spot for Brits abroad with Malaga being the destination of choice ABTA’s figures show that bookings to Spain from the UK are up 11%, with Portugal and Greece also showing increases in passenger bookings.

Linking back to the recession it can also be seen that British people are well and truly getting in the holiday spirit with two-thirds overspending on their holiday budget, with one-fifth so caught up in the excitement that they buy things without looking at the price. Therefore it can be suggested that last year’s ‘staycation’ trend has gone the same way as last year’s passé bikini – it may not be the case that a holiday to Asia is better value than a trip inside the UK, but more Brits than ever will be taking the plunge to find out for themselves.