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Barclays Travel Insurance report

Barclays Travel insurance report has highlighted a vast increase in British tourists travelling to Melbourne and Sydney, Australia this winter instead of the slopes for a ski holiday.

These results have undoubtedly been affected by the English cricket team venturing to Australia in the hopes of winning the cricket World Cup. The research has revealed a 25% increase in British holiday makers travelling to Sydney, and a substantial 140% increase to Melbourne in 2006.

Furthermore, these two cities are seeing the biggest increase in spending by British tourists which has risen by 178%.

UK travellers are also making other destinations popular such as Hong Kong and Phuket, which are both on route to Australia, and New York where tourists have shopped happily given the strong pound-to-dollar exchange rate.

When comparing December 2005-January 2006 with December 2006-January 2007 figures, the following top 5 destinations have increased considerably:

Melbourne 140%
Sydney 25%
Phuket 24%
Hong Kong 21%
Dubai15%

By contrast, visitor numbers and spending has reduced in previously popular European ski resorts (Meribel, Val d'lsere and Chamonix ) by 18% compared to the year before.

Research suggest the top 6 ski destinations are generally seeing less British visitors and their spending is detailed beneath (from the period of December 2005-January 2006 to December 2006-January):

	British Visitors	Spending
1. Chamonix	-18%	-19%
2. Val D'Isere	-12%	+9%
3. Morzine	-12%	-1%
4. Meribelp	-2%	0%
5. Courchevel	1%	+18%
6. Verbier	1%	+18%

The research from the report also suggests, that Paris, Sydney, Dublin, New York and Dubai are the top 5 destinations based purely on number of visits.

However, Las Vegas, Verbier and Phuket are the places where British holiday makers tend to spend an average of about £400 compared to less than £100 when holidaying in Dublin, Paris or Prague.

The overall trend depicted from the report is the popularity of long haul holiday destinations with British travellers over Christmas and New Year. Given that flights are getting cheaper, Brits are tending to travel further away for a sunny break during winter.

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T. Loaiza Editorial

20/02/2007