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Weekend Breaks; New Vacation Option for Europeans

© Stuart Buchanan MacWatt

One of the most significent aspects of vacation travel in Europe has been the recent explosion of interest in the short break vacation market. No-frills airlines bmibaby, easyjet and Ryanair have led the way in opening up cheap routes from London and regional airports to destinations all over Europe. The short weekend break in some thrilling city has now become a viable alternative to sitting home in front of the televsion set.

A UK survey of Britain's vacation habits recently carried out by bmi shows that this weekend escape plan is now worth a phenomenal £34 billion a year. People are spending an average amount of £760 a year on these short breaks, flying off to European cities, cultural festivals and sporting events.

The three day break is most popular, with 21% of respondents taking Friday off work to fly out and 34% arriving back late Sunday evening, giving them some 55 hours away.

Edinburgh and Glasgow were bmi's most popular weekend break locations in UK, while Paris, Amsterdam, Palma, Dublin, Brussels, Venice, Nice and Madrid were their most popular European weekend destinations. Other airlines have reported strong interest in Prague, Rome and Barcelona.

The key engredients to a successful weekend break away were spending quality time with a partner, sampling local food and drink, cultural sightseeing, weather and, (for the ladies), shopping. Nightlife, perhaps unsurprisingly, was more important to the younger travellers than the more elderly.

bmi asked psychologist, Dr. Aric Sigman to comment on the results of their survey. He stated: "The results indicate that the British have now developed proper escape plans to counterbalance the fact that they work the longest hours in Europe. The low cost and accessibility of short haul travel now enables people to act out the growing need to be physically and geographically removed from their everyday surroundings in order to truly get away psychologically and emotionally. In fact it has been found that when it comes to dealing with stress, frequent short breaks are more effective than infrequent long holidays. What is interesting is that most people spend their weekend breaks in a low-key way involving time alone with their partner, dining and R&R - as opposed to the frenetic activity and nightlife sought by previous generations."

Whatever the reason, many UK residents are now taking advantage of rock bottom no-frills prices to spend four or more short breaks in the thrilling cities of Ireland, Scandinavia, Europe and the Mediterranean during the summer months, the German Christmas Markets and Alpine or Spanish ski slopes in winter. Visitors to UK from North America are also taking advantage of these no-frills flight options, spicing up their vacation in England with short breaks in cities as far afield as Copenhagen, Berlin, Prague in the Czech Republic, Spain's Barcelona and Athens in Greece.