ABTA has revealed its 2024 top 10 hotspots for travellers, featuring a UK destination for the first time.
This is ABTA’s first Destinations to Watch report since before the pandemic and it includes the UK county of Shropshire alongside nine other hotspots that are all overseas. The report has been released ahead of this weekend’s Sunshine Saturday.
The list describes Shropshire as a ‘rural gem’ with some of the country’s ‘most beautiful landscapes, towns and villages’, as well as being the ‘birthplace of the industrial revolution’.
The addition of a UK destination reflects the findings of ABTA’s Holiday Habits 2023-24 report, which showed that, while 64% of those surveyed planned to holiday abroad in the next 12 months, 58% will also take a trip in the UK.
And, although research from Go.Compare this week warned that a quarter of holidaymakers will cut back on holiday spending this year due to the cost of living, data from ABTA shows the appetite for travel remains, with 28% planning to spend more on trips this year.
In line with the trend to travel out of peak season, the destinations featured in the 2024 Destinations to Watch list can also be visited out of season.
Lesser-known destinations Albania, Extremadura in Spain, and Saxony in Germany have made this year’s list, which reflects the fact ABTA’s report found almost half (47%) of people say they plan to visit a new city or resort and 41% are planning to head to a new country.
Albania is already growing as a popular spot with more UK operators offering holidays to the country, while the Extremadura region features UNESCO world heritage sites and Saxony is home to the cities of Dresden and Leipzig.
Long haul favourites Aruba, Mauritius, Vietnam and Zambia also feature on the list, while in Europe, Crete and The Tyrol (both Austria and Italy) are ones to look at for 2024.
ABTA Director of Communications Graeme Buck said: “Destinations to Watch offers an array of inspiration for travel over the next 12 months. The reason we produce the report – with destinations identified by ABTA travel experts – is to get people thinking and talking about their holidays for the coming year, as well as encouraging them to seek help from an ABTA member travel expert to plan and book their trip.
“It’s one of the many ways we’re supporting ABTA members this peak booking season, by publicising this report as part of our wider ‘Travel with confidence’ marketing activities across traditional and social media.”