COVID-19 UK Tourism Consumer Tracker Survey (Wales profile): 1 March to 9 May 2022

Upcoming trip intentions

Reflecting higher comfort levels, UK and Wales residents anticipate taking significantly more overnight trips in the next 12 months, than the previous 12 months. 

Despite high confidence, the public anticipate a number of potential barriers to taking UK trips: ‘financial barriers’ including ‘the cost of living’, ‘personal finances’, ‘the cost of fuel’ and ‘rising costs of holidays/leisure’ making up the top four. This marks a departure from the start of the year when ‘restrictions on travel from government’ was the leading barrier, underlining how front-of-mind, the ‘cost of living crisis’ has become in the public’s minds.

The strong relative confidence that UK trips would go ahead means that, compared to 2021 more domestic trips are already booked, and a higher proportion of UK residents are anticipating an overnight domestic trip in summer (June to September) and autumn (October to December). In the summer period, the highest incidence of trips are set to take place in August and September.

UK overnight trips continue to be favoured to overseas trips, with a large gap in trip intention and trip confidence, driven in part by older life stages who are more confident in taking domestic trips.

July to September is the time of year most likely to generate overnight domestic trips to all destination types, particularly to a ‘traditional coastal/seaside town’ which is set to generate more than twice as much interest as in the autumn.

Trips to Wales: profiling and behaviour

Consistent with a trend since the start of this research, the South West of England is the most popular region of the UK for an overnight short break or holiday. Wales is the 6^th most preferred destination for an overnight trip in summer, although with 9% intention, it is only 3 percentage points behind the 2^nd most preferred destination (the North West of England).

Snowdonia is the number one intended destination for an overnight trip in Wales this summer (particularly high in June and September), followed closely by Pembrokeshire and Llandudno and Colwyn Bay (the latter highest in August). 

Trips taken since January 2022

21% of UK residents and 24% of Wales residents have taken an overnight domestic trip since January this year, with incidence highest in April. Around 1 in 12 UK and Wales residents have taken an overseas trip since the start of the year.

Similar to trip intenders, non-Wales residents make up the majority of trip-takers to Wales, the North West of England, South West of England, London and the West Midlands the leading regions of origin.