British seaside holidays 'in fashion'

More and more people are starting to consider holidaying at a traditional British seaside town because of the unpleasant image of many European beach resorts, an industry expert has said.

Peter Hampson, the director of British Resorts & Destinations Association, explained that British seaside resorts had had a lot of bad press in the 80s and 90s but are currently enjoying something of a resurgence.

Indeed, the recent United Kingdom Tourism Survey (UKTS) showed that people from the UK took 79.21 million domestic holidays in 2006.

"It noticeably started something like five or six years ago, in the early 2000s, when it started to become noticeably more fashionable to holiday at home," Mr Hampson commented.

"That was led by the broadsheets rather than the red tops, it was rather an upper market-led area - holiday cottages and beach huts, the fact that it was traditional.

"There is a backlash against certain elements of the overseas market … A lot of foreign holiday taking is seen as naff and nasty … particularly some of the mainstream, mass-market stuff. It's all-day British breakfasts, yesterday's copy of The Sun, those sorts of things."

Mr Hampson concluded by pointed out that there had been a lot of money spent recently on developing British seaside resorts.

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