Holiday bookings trends and insights 2025: inform marketing and comms strategies with data and insights on holiday booking trends for 2025. 

In light of national tourism week, the IPA have recently shared their Pulse Poll – Holiday booking plans for 2025, a trend and insights report into the way we choose to plan, research and book our holidays for 2025. The purpose of the poll was to survey holiday booking trends, to review plans for the tourism sector for 2025. The data highlights key differences with our approach to this task, based on our age and generation.

The report is hyper focused on the planning and consideration stage of the buying cycle, which we know all too well, is super important for our tourism sector clients.

Holiday planning
When reviewing the full base of 2,000 respondents, almost 80% of the data pool agree or strongly agree they have already taken or plan to take a holiday in 2025, of this over 40% plan to travel abroad, with over 30% choosing domestic UK as their preferred destination. Interestingly 30% have already booked their holiday for next year, and 10% have already been on holiday within the first 2 months of the year. 8% of respondents are planning on cutting down on their travel plans in 2025.

Peak booking months
Bookings for domestic holidays happen throughout the year, although the strongest months for bookings are March, April and May, with a dip in June. The lowest months for bookings are November and December. These holiday breaks will typically be taken throughout the year with a focus on April through to August, which is somewhat expected given the unpredictable nature of the great British weather.

In contrast, overseas holidays are booked in a steady flow from February through to September, with a dip in October, November and December. These holidays are generally taken from April through to September, with June and September peaking for overseas holidays.

Advance booking period
Almost 25% of all bookings are made 2-3 months in advance of the holiday, with just over 10% of people booking 4-5 months in advance and just under 10% of people doing so 6-7 months in advance. When reviewing this data by generation it’s clear that the generation that likes to book further in advance than any other is Generation X. This Generation books 18 weeks in advance of the holiday, with Millennials and Baby Boomers book just over 15 weeks in advance. Gen Z are the generation who have the shortest advance booking period at just under 15 weeks.

Resources and research
In terms of the resources and research that we do before booking a holiday, review sites such as TripAdvisor came out as the clear winner for this year and 2024, and accounts for over 40% of all the holiday planning that we conduct. Personal recommendations from friends and family members account for nearly 30%, with social media coming in just over 20%. Interestingly AI tools accounted for 5%, and either wasn’t included in the 2024 study or wasn’t ranked, with 0% accountability for 2024. It’s likely that AI will be a growth factor in the studies in the coming years, the more sophisticated the tool becomes and the more reliant we are on the validity of its recommendations.  When reviewing the same data through the lens of gender very little changes, although it is clear men prefer using AI to women for this task, where women are more likely to research using social media than their male counterparts. The polarisation takes hold when reviewing the same data through generational differences.  Almost 40% of 18–34-year-olds (Gen Z and Millennials) use social media as their preferred method for research, with review sites like TripAdvisor being strongest with the 35-54 year-olds (Millennials and Generation X) at 45%. Our Baby Boomers are most likely to take their research from the resort and destination brochure with over 20% opting for this method over any other.

On average we collectively spend 3.8 weeks researching our next holiday destination. Gen Z and Millennials spend the most time researching (as they also over index for social media research, maybe the additional time comes as no surprise) and Gen X complete the least amount of research time, although that might come down to the fact that this generation is likely to be the most time poor. Women certainly seem to enjoy holiday shopping more than men, as women research for longer and book further in advance for their holidays than their male counterparts.

To summarise

In summary, the data shows that consideration for a holiday is happening throughout the year with a stronger focus on March to September, irrespective of overseas or domestic travel. The consideration period is usually around 4 weeks and takes place on average 2-3 months in advance of the holiday. This insight is valuable for any brand looking to plan a marketing and comms strategy, as it can inform you when you should be in-market, and campaign timing can be applied based on which months of the holiday season you are looking to drive the acquisition for.

In addition to timing, understanding your target demographic and knowing what research preferences they hold will be key in developing successful communication strategies.  Their buying behaviour both on and offline will help to inform media channel recommendations and rationale for channels.

When collectively delivered with the right messaging, at the right time this will allow you to reach your core target audience on the right platform or media channel when they are predisposed to consider a holiday booking.

For future campaign strategies, AI will be one to watch for this sector, as new and innovative ways of searching and booking holidays will unfold. Whilst AI is already starting to weave its way into the research and buying behaviours, once AI can deliver a full end to end solution for consideration, interest and conversion – it will be a game changer!