Family holidays will cost less for the next 10 years

Family holidays cost up to a third less this year than last and families can look forward to further savings for the next decade, according to a new European survey.

It found that families saved an average of just over 10 per cent on their summer holiday this year, with some saving considerably more.

A typical family holiday in 2009 cost just over £2,000, more than £200 less than in 2007.

In some cases, it is even cheaper to go on holiday than stay at home because prices in some countries, such as South Africa and Egypt, are so low, says the survey.

According to Euromonitor (http://www.euromonitor.com/The_WTM_Global_Trends_Report_identifies_post_recession_trends), the falling costs of holidays are due to the fact that many families are cutting back and downgrading their hotel and flights, forcing companies to drop prices to lure them back.

Head of the research team Caroline Bremner said: It will be hard to bring prices back up, even when there is a recovery because people have got use to discounted prices.""

Package holidays are selling better than DIY trips, however, as a number of airline failures over the past few months have put people off booking flights and accommodation separately.

This is largely because when an airline goes bust, passengers who have bought packages will get a refund but those who had booked flights direct with the airline might not.

Passengers can protect themselves against the collapse of an airline with Scheduled Airline Failure Insurance, which is available from insurewithease.com to bolt on to its standard travel insurance policies.

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