38% of Brits are too scared to take time off
New research from British Airways reveals that the annual fortnight away is in danger of becoming obsolete due to Brits’ fears of their employers.
New stats show that the vast majority (69%) of Brits did NOT have a two-week holiday in 2017. Furthermore, 35% of Brits say their last two-week holiday was more than two years ago. 5% have never been away for this long! 71% of Brits only usually go abroad for less than two weeks.
Its seems that even when they’re away Brits just can’t switch off, and it’s work, what their co-workers employers think, that’s holding them back from taking a proper 14 days off work straight.
Although 78% of employed adults are allowed to take two week holidays by their company, 33% haven’t been able to go on a two-week break as they just can’t get the time off work. 25% are too worried about the work load piling up and coming back to a lot of work.
Furthermore, 38% believe that two week holidays are frowned upon or discouraged by their workplace. 52% of employed adults have had left over holiday allowance at the end of the year. The main reason being that work is just too busy to take time off (49%).
It is no surprise then to learn that 55% of Brits wish they had spent more time at the destination during their last main holiday abroad. In fact 34% didn’t get to see everything they wanted.
22% admit they wish they had taken more time off for their last holiday. 20% came back dreading the return to work.
After a one week holiday 52% of Brits feel like they haven’t really had a long enough break. However, 62% of Brits have come back from a holiday and felt like they hadn’t properly switched off at all.
On average, Brits went on 2 holidays abroad in 2017. Young adults under the age of 35 went on the most holidays – averaging at 3 within the year. As far as gender is concerned men are taking more holidays than women on average (3 vs 2).
Across all the countries surveyed by BA, UK adults went on the least amount of holidays abroad in 2017. On average adults globally take 4 holidays a year. However respondents in Japan take 8 trips, India take 7 holidays and those in the UAE take 6 a year.
The most popular types holidays that Brits would like to take in 2018 are: European beach holidays (45%), European city breaks (40%) and the Caribbean (25%).
81% of Brits have been back to the same holiday destination more than once, visiting their favourite destination 8 times on average! Over-55s are the most likely to re-visit a favourite location (91%). In fact 30% of these people have been back to the same place more than 10 times!
27% of Brits didn’t visit any new countries in 2017. On average, Brits visited just 1 new country during the year. This is less than the global average of 2 new countries. But 17% of consumers globally not visiting any new countries.
View the full case study here to find out how we carried out this research and the coverage it generated.
