Research Report · April 2026 · Holiday Extras
Holiday
Hassles
What disrupts British holidaymakers, how badly it hurts, and what they do to protect themselves.
said a hassle ruined the holiday completely
hassle: airport queues with 212 mentions
of scam/theft mentions ruined the trip
Friction is everywhere — but catastrophe is rare and concentrated
Every year, millions of British travellers step into airports full of optimism and step out the other side with a story. Sometimes it's about the queue that ate an hour of their lives. Sometimes it's about a bag that arrived in the wrong country. And occasionally — thankfully rarely — it's about something that genuinely derailed the whole trip. This research was commissioned to understand those stories at scale: which hassles are most common, which ones hurt the most, and what travellers do to protect themselves before they even leave home.
Across 383 UK holidaymakers surveyed in April 2026, we collected around 830 hassle descriptions covering the last two years of travel. The picture that emerges is one of resilience with pockets of genuine damage. The vast majority of travellers absorb friction — queues, delays, overpriced duty free — and get on with their holiday. But a small category of higher-stakes incidents, particularly scams, lost luggage, and health emergencies, carries a devastation rate that is orders of magnitude higher than the everyday annoyances.
There's a clear difference between the hassles that sting on the day and the ones that stay with you for years. Queues are friction. Lost luggage or a scam is a catastrophe. Those two categories need completely different responses from travel brands.Seamus McCauley, Head of Public Affairs — Holiday Extras
How the research was conducted
An online survey of 383 UK holidaymakers was conducted via the Attest platform in April 2026. Respondents were drawn from a nationally representative sample of working-age adults across England, Scotland, and Wales.
Each respondent was asked to name up to three hassles experienced on holiday in the last two years, and to rate the overall impact on their holiday enjoyment using a five-point scale. Hassle descriptions were coded into thematic categories by analysts. 47 respondents reported no issues, gave non-answers, or provided clearly positive descriptions and were excluded from frequency counts, leaving a working base of 336 respondents contributing approximately 830 coded hassle mentions.
| Research platform | Attest |
| Fieldwork date | April 2026 |
| Total qualified sample | 383 UK holidaymakers |
| Working base (hassle questions) | 336 respondents (47 excluded for non-answers) |
| Total hassle mentions coded | ~830 across all respondents |
| Geography | England, Scotland and Wales |
| Age range | Working age, nationally representative |
| Gender split | Mixed male and female respondents |
| Severity scale | 5-point: Ruined it completely · Significantly affected · Dampener but recovered · Minor annoyance · No effect |
Airport queues and flight delays dominate by volume — but most travellers recover
When British holidaymakers describe their biggest holiday hassles, two categories tower above everything else: the experience of getting through the airport, and the experience of waiting for a flight that should have already departed.
Airport queues, security, and passport control accumulated 212 mentions — by far the largest single category and equivalent to more than one in four of all coded hassle references. Flight delays and cancellations came second with 175 mentions. Together, these two categories account for roughly 47% of all hassle mentions in the dataset, making them the defining texture of the modern British holiday experience.
Yet despite their dominance by volume, both categories sit at an average severity of 'Dampener', and their 'ruined it completely' rates are among the lowest in the top ten: just 0.9% for queues and 2.9% for flight delays. Travellers encounter these hassles, absorb them, and move on. The picture that emerges is one of widespread low-level friction that is accepted as part of the holiday experience rather than a dealbreaker.
Airport queues (212 mentions) and flight delays (175 mentions) together account for nearly half of all hassle mentions — yet their 'ruined it completely' rates are just 0.9% and 2.9% respectively. Volume and devastation are not the same thing.
This distinction matters for how travel brands communicate. Reducing queue friction is a volume play — addressing the hassle that most people experience most often. But it is not, by itself, the thing most likely to save a holiday from complete disaster. That requires looking at a different part of the data entirely.
In their own words: airport and flight friction
Passport control — it takes forever and the queues are long. Airport experiences: long waits. Luggage took about 2 hours to collect.
Security queues, then only a single person for passport checks for the entire airport, then expensive duty free on top of that.
Flight delays. Being stuck on the tarmac for three hours with two restless kids and no working tablets is very stressful.
Scams, theft and lost luggage are rare but carry the highest devastation rates
When we rank hassles not by how often they happen but by how often they destroy a trip, a very different picture emerges — one that has direct implications for what travel protection products matter most.
Scams, theft, and harassment recorded a 23.8% 'ruined it completely' rate — meaning nearly one in four respondents who experienced this category said it wrecked their holiday entirely. With an average severity of 'Significant', this is the category most likely to inflict lasting damage. Yet it appears in only 21 mentions, meaning it is both concentrated and under-discussed relative to its impact.
Lost or damaged luggage (7.5% ruined rate) and accommodation issues (4.4% ruined rate) also sit well above the dataset average of 4.2%. Critically, lost luggage is not a low-frequency edge case — it recorded 40 mentions, placing it sixth overall by volume. It combines meaningful frequency with meaningful severity, making it one of the most important risk categories in the dataset.
| Hassle category | % ruined | Ruined count | Total mentions | Avg severity |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Scams, theft & harassment | 23.8% | 5 | 21 | Significant |
| Visa & entry requirements | 8.3% | 1 | 12 | Dampener |
| Lost or damaged luggage | 7.5% | 3 | 40 | Significant |
| Health & medical issues | 6.7% | 1 | 15 | Dampener |
| Overcrowding & busy destinations | 5.3% | 1 | 19 | Dampener |
| Food & drink issues | 4.9% | 3 | 61 | Dampener |
| Accommodation issues | 4.4% | 2 | 45 | Significant |
| High costs & unexpected expenses | 4.1% | 3 | 74 | Dampener |
| Bad weather | 4.0% | 1 | 25 | Dampener |
| Flight delays & cancellations | 2.9% | 5 | 175 | Dampener |
23.8% of scam and theft mentions resulted in a holiday ruined completely — more than eight times the rate recorded for airport queues (0.9%). Low frequency does not mean low risk.
In their own words: high-impact incidents
Morocco — a guy started putting jewellery on me at a stall. Then someone wanted to braid my hair and started touching it. Then I was followed back to my hotel.
Lost luggage — our bags went to a different city, so we spent the first day hunting for swimsuits and clean clothes.
The holiday rental was a complete misrepresentation of the listing. The transfer from the airport was a total shambles too.
Most travellers absorb hassles — only 4.2% say one ruined their holiday completely
Across the full sample, the dominant experience of holiday hassles is recovery, not devastation. The severity distribution reveals a population of travellers who are resilient by default — absorbing friction and adapting, rather than letting it wreck their trip.
The most common Q3 response across the visible survey data is 'They put a dampener on things but I recovered' — selected by the largest share of respondents who experienced hassles. This mirrors the broader dataset finding, where only 4.2% of respondents selected 'They ruined the holiday completely'. The severity scale runs from minor annoyance through to total ruin, and the mass of responses clusters firmly at the lower end.
~96% of respondents said their worst holiday hassle left them recovered, only mildly annoyed, or entirely unaffected. But 4.2% — around 16 people in this sample — said a hassle ruined their trip completely. At scale across millions of UK travellers, that minority represents an enormous number of destroyed holidays each year.
The resilience finding is important context for travel brands. It means the majority of negative experiences do not translate into lasting damage to customer relationships — provided the brand responds well. However, the small proportion who experience genuine holiday destruction are disproportionately affected by the high-risk categories identified in Chapter 2. Protecting against catastrophe — through insurance, rapid response, and clear communication — matters precisely because it is rare: when it happens, it is total.
What this means for travel brands and Holiday Extras
The data points to a clear strategic distinction — and several specific actions for brands operating in the travel services space.
Separate friction management from catastrophe protection
Airport queues and flight delays are high-frequency, low-devastation. Scams, lost luggage, and health emergencies are low-frequency, high-devastation. These need different product responses: friction reduction for the former, robust insurance and rapid-response protocols for the latter.
Lost luggage content and protection is a high-value product opportunity
Lost or damaged luggage sits sixth by mention volume but third in devastation rate at 7.5% 'ruined it completely'. Travellers who experience it are far more likely to feel their holiday was destroyed. Clear luggage protection products and pre-trip advice content address a real and felt need.
Scam and theft protection is low-volume but critical
With a 23.8% devastation rate, scams and theft destroy holidays at more than eight times the rate of airport queues. Insurance products and destination safety content targeting this risk carry disproportionate value relative to the raw frequency of mentions.
Most bad experiences don't end customer relationships — response does
~96% of travellers recover from their worst hassle. Brands have a window in which a well-timed, empathetic response can convert a friction moment into a loyalty moment. The minority who experience genuine holiday destruction are the ones who most need proactive support.
About Holiday Extras
Holiday Extras is the UK's leading provider of airport travel services, including airport hotels, parking, lounges, and transfers. Every year, millions of British travellers use Holiday Extras products to take the friction out of getting away.
This research was commissioned to better understand the holiday hassles facing UK travellers and how those hassles affect enjoyment.
For press enquiries, please contact [email protected]
Research note
This report is based on original survey research conducted via the Attest platform in April 2026. 383 UK holidaymakers completed the survey. Hassle descriptions were coded into thematic categories by thematic analysis. 47 respondents reporting no issues or giving non-answers were excluded from frequency counts. Severity data and 'ruined it completely' rates are calculated across the working base of coded mentions (~830). All percentages are rounded to one decimal place where applicable.
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