New research has revealed that our holidays are costing us more than we think, as over the course of the 2016 holiday season the UK public overspent on summer getaways by £2.4 billion due to unforeseen costs.
The survey, conducted by minicabit, has highlighted that Brits are being stung with an average increase of nearly 10% of the original cost of a holiday. This is down to extras such as holiday insurance, excess baggage, airport transfers, car hire and duty-free purchases, amounting to £128.14 per holiday.
To provide some context to that level of spending, £2.4 billion is not only virtually 10% of the total cost of a holiday added on again, it is also 9.13% of the entire spend by UK residents travelling abroad for holidays in 2015 – £26.3 billion.
Forking out for these extras often appears to be due to a lack of planning, as one-third of respondents simply didn’t know how much they spent on extras.
One of the major factors if of course, holiday insurance – an average £40.25 overspend is seen on this alone. This can be attributed to part of a wider problem which was highlighted by an ABTA survey that 24% of UK travellers holidaying overseas in 2012 were uninsured, 48% of which were 15-24 years old.
In terms of UK location, Londoners, perhaps unsurprisingly, splash out the most with a mean overspend of £177.62, with high roaming costs for those unable to switch off from work being a major factor in this. The Welsh come in second, with the highest mean spend on excess baggage and 12% of those surveyed spending over £100 on airport transfers.
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