VisitBritain has released the latest results of its UK Covid-19 Consumer Tracker Report, based on fieldwork from 1-5 June. When asked what type of accommodation respondents were planning on staying in on their next UK overnight trip (June to September), the most popular choice at 35% was caravanning or camping – beating hotels/motels/inns by one percentage point.
One trend this week is that the nation appears more negative in mind-set, with the overall mood and perceptions of when ‘normality’ will return are marginally down, while the proportion of people feeling the ‘worst is still to come’ has increased.
There is a small shift towards people being more likelihood to take a holiday, and higher confidence in trips going ahead. Other points of note include:
- There continues to be little expectation things will be returning to normal anytime soon, with just 29% expecting ‘normality’ by September and 52% by December.
- 28% consider themselves fairly or very confident they would be able to take a holiday or short-break during the peak July/August period this year, which represents a fractional increase on last week.
- The main reasons driving this relative lack of confidence are restrictions on travel by government (52%), fewer opportunities to eat or drink out (51%) and concerns about catching Covid-19 (45%).
- 41% still expect to be taking fewer domestic short-breaks and holidays compared to last year (unchanged from week 2).
- In terms of region/s to be visited between now and September, the South West still leads (19%) followed by Scotland (12%).
- For the summer period, countryside/village and traditional coastal/seaside town destinations lead with 31% and 30% shares respectively.
- As restrictions lift, outdoor areas and activities look set to attract higher than usual levels of visitors, while predominantly indoor activities/venues (e.g. restaurants, spas, museums, galleries) are likely to face a lengthier period of subdued demand.
The COVID-19 consumer sentiment tracker is based on a nationally representative sample of UK adults. The survey will be repeated across a 13-week period and the results will be made publicly available and updated each week on the website.
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