Something for the weekender?
By Jo Tweedy, TravelMail
Last updated at 11:39 11 September 2003
Britain's hottest summer in years, turned off like a tap when August ended, has left tour operators specialising in short breaks anticipating a profitable autumn.
With high numbers of travellers staying at home all summer, an even higher number are predicted to take a pre-Christmas weekend break on foreign soil.
Louise Newton, Marketing Manager for Travelscene, says: 'It's been a tricky year for the short breaks market so far. The heat of the summer has meant that a lot of people have holidayed in the UK. As a result, we're expecting a really robust period between now and Christmas.'
According to low-cost flyer Bmi Baby British travellers spend £34 billion a year on escaping for the weekend and research released by the Association of British Travel Agents (ABTA) suggests that 82% of all travel last year was for no longer than three days.
While Paris, Amsterdam, Barcelona, Rome and Bruges remain the most popular city breakaways for UK weekenders, it seems lots of us are downsizing our destinations in exchange for somewhere different.
'There's definitely an appetite for something new among UK travellers' says Newton. 'We've seen places like Rotterdam challenging Amsterdam, Lille has become hugely popular and people seem to love Gibraltar.
'We also had lots of people looking for cooler destinations during the summer. Reykjavik was popular during the heatwave and visits to Helsinki were up 56% year on year. Long haul, Boston, New York and Cairo have all had good years with bookings high.'
Click on the links below for our round up of autumn city escapes:
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