Britons stay at home this summer - whatever the weather (Feature)

By Anna Tomforde Aug 18, 2009, 5:08 GMT

London - Plagued by swine flu, pinched by the recession and disadvantaged by a strong euro, Britons have wholeheartedly embraced 'staycation' this summer, giving overseas holidays in hot climates a miss in favour of a bucket-and-spade break on native shores.

According to one survey, up to a fifth of Britons who travelled abroad last year are foresaking the French Dordogne for the rolling hills of Dorset, the Greek islands for the Scilly Isles and Majorca for Scarborough on the North Sea coast.

With 'staycation' having become a fact of recession life, the tourism industry is smiling. Hoteliers, cottage-letting agencies, caravan parks, restaurants and cafes all hope for improved business.

A survey by a leading supermarket chain suggested that people would spend 43 billion pounds (70 billion dollars) on holidays this summer, with 67 per cent of that staying in Britain.

While, on the face of it, the price for renting a crofter's cottage on a Scottish island might appear exorbitant when compared to the rent for a French farmhouse, it's the additional cost of travel to foreign destinations and the pound's near parity with the euro that has contributed to this summer's trend, travel experts report.

Five nights in the south of France, budget flight and cheap car hire included, will easily set a British couple back by 1,000 pounds, experts have worked out.

While some European countries may still be relatively inexpensive compared with Britain, such popular destinations as France and Italy, for example, are no longer regarded to be among them.

As a consequence, some of Britain's most favourite holiday regions, such as Cornwall, Wales or the Lake District, are booked up, their inns, hotels and bed and breakfasts covered in a forest of 'No Vacancies' signs.

Those who like to leave their bookings late, with an eye to the five-day weather forecast, might find that British favourites are booked up - despite the weather.

Nonetheless, agents could still see a last-minute surge in foreign bookings after weathermen admitted that earlier long-range forecasts of a 'barbecue summer' could turn out to be too good to be true.

Travellers who have ventured abroad this year report incidents of 'over-reaction' by fellow European Union member states to the rapidly-spreading swine flu epidemic in Britain.

As was perhaps to be expected, scores of British students have been held in strict quarantine in China over flu fears this month.

But an incident in the Normandy town of Bayeux, in France, has attracted adverse comment in the British press.

A group of British school children was recently quarantined in the town's castle, attended to by doctors whose faces were covered in transparent balloons making them look like spacemen.

The French 'overreaction' prompted fears that British travellers could, once again, be marked as 'pariahs' in Europe over a health scare, further curtailing their Reiselust.