Brits delay holiday bookings in hunt for deals as Spain remains top choice

More Brits went to Spain this year than anywhere else, even though many held off booking until the last possible moment. Now almost a third say a trip abroad is something they’d cut back on, and that the family holiday budget is being stretched in new ways. 

Families held off booking but numbers remained high

Plenty of households spent 2026 refreshing booking pages and holding their nerve, with many not handing over a deposit until the final few weeks. However, brits still flocked to the airports, and more of them chose Spain than any other country.

That’s the picture from the UK’s main trade body for travel agents and tour operators’ (ABTA) latest Holiday Habits research, presented at the travel association’s annual convention in Madeira on Tuesday October 13. It found 88 per cent of Brits took at least one holiday this year, close to the pre-pandemic high, with Spain the most visited destination at 36 per cent, up four points on last year and well ahead of France and Italy.

“We saw people switching their holiday plans and booking later, waiting and seeing,” ABTA chief executive Mark Tanzer said, describing a “stop-start year” in which “the market did come back in the summer.”

Why so many waited until the last minute 

The waiting game wasn’t only about money either. Fears over jet fuel shortages and flight disruption after the US-Israel war with Iran began in February, as well as the arrival of the EU’s Entry/Exit System, gave travellers plenty of reasons to hang on before committing. Now those fears have eased, and ABTA’s travel confidence index (a measure of how many people feel secure about going abroad against how many feel worried) stands at +50. That’s three points lower than a year ago, but still the second-highest score since the research began. 

However, the cost of living hasn’t gone anywhere. Later bookings and shorter city breaks have been a growing feature of holidays through 2026, and Tanzer didn’t sugarcoat what comes next: “The pressures of the last few months are not going to go away in the next 18 months.”

Almost a third would cut back on a trip abroad 

Asked where they’d tighten the belt, 32 per cent of people named a holiday abroad, against 23 per cent who’d trim a break in the UK. Fewer people said they’d give up on new phones or gadgets than on a trip overseas, which says a lot about how stretched household budgets have become and their list of priorities.

For many families, the thinking has become ‘let’s wait and see what’s left nearer the time’. That said, the overall picture isn’t one of people giving up on holidays. Only 15 per cent plan to spend less on travel next year, with more than half of those blaming the cost of living, while 32 per cent expect to spend more.

Value for money is clearly on people’s minds though, as 44 per cent named it as a reason for booking through a travel agent or tour operator, up five points. Package holidays (where flights, hotel and often transfers come in one price) also rose to 63 per cent of trips abroad, giving families one fixed figure to budget around. 

Waiting doesn’t mean Spain is getting cheaper 

Holding off in the hope of a bargain is understandable, but there’s nothing to suggest Spanish holidays are getting any cheaper. Hotel rooms across Spain averaged a record €166.90 a night in August, 7.3 per cent more than a year earlier, according to INE (Spain’s national statistics institute), with TUI admitting earlier this summer that Spain is effectively full at peak times.

So rather than slashing prices, operators are competing on how families pay. Jet2holidays has already put summer 2027 on sale with a £60 (about €70) per person deposit, monthly payments and free child places, while First Choice is advertising 6 per cent off summer 2027 holidays. Those are early-booking offers, though, meaning the latest trend of putting it off until the last minute isn’t going to help.

Spain’s pull hasn’t faded either, with 26 per cent of holidaymakers already planning to visit next year.

What it means for Spain’s coastal resorts

On the coasts, British guests are still filling the beds. Benidorm’s hotels were 91.7 per cent full in September, with Brits making up 43.5 per cent of guests, more than Spanish holidaymakers, according to figures from Hosbec (the hotel association covering Benidorm, the Costa Blanca and the wider Valencia region). Across the whole of Spain, 13.9 million UK visitors arrived between January and August, 5.4 per cent more than over the same period last year.

However, full hotels don’t automatically mean healthier businesses. Hosbec has pointed out that rising energy, food, staff and tax bills are squeezing margins, and owners can’t always pass those costs on without putting guests off. Later bookings also make planning harder, with Benidorm’s 87.1 per cent figure for the first half of October based on bookings confirmed at the time, rather than a final result.

For residents with family back in the UK, the same squeeze may show up closer to home, with visits from relatives arranged at shorter notice or trimmed to a long weekend instead of a fortnight.

Anyone planning a Spanish trip next year, or hoping to get family over for a visit, is better off comparing early-booking deposit offers against what’s left nearer the time, as ABTA’s chief executive expects the pressure on budgets to last for at least another 18 months.