Brits Say Travel Is More Important Than Going To The Pub

London - 30 November, 2020. As we come to the end of the second national lockdown, travel deals platform HolidayPirates, in conjunction with hotukdeals.com, surveyed over 5,500 of their customers across Europe to find out how the pandemic has affected our travel, leisure habits and attitudes to work.

Being restricted to our own homes has shown the importance of travel for so many of us. Of the British responders aged 18-35, 65% said they missed travelling, compared to 37% missing being able to eat and drink out.

Phil Salcedo, head of the UK market for HolidayPirates said, “These results give an interesting insight into what we’ve missed most during this enforced period at home. It comes as no surprise that so many of us have been dreaming of travelling again, but for British millennials it’s even more stark than that; the results suggest it’s more important than going to the pub or, maybe more understandably, the gym”.

It seems that Brits have a different attitude to diet and exercise than their European neighbours. Nearly a fifth of those surveyed in France have taken up online gym courses, compared to 6% of Brits but the numbers are reversed when it comes to take up of alcohol deliveries with 13% of Brits and just 3% of French. More French and Germans than Brits said an annoyance was not being able to go to the gym, with 27% and 23% respectively compared to 19%, whereas 30% of Brits also stated that eating too much was a concern but this was only noted by 20% of French and Germans.

Lockdown has seen us all spend longer at home, but the results of the survey show that us Brits have spent our time very differently to our European neighbours. Where Brits have increased their online presence through streaming films, tv and music (58%), this only accounts for 30% of French activity. 20% of the surveyed Brits have taken to downloading podcasts and audiobooks, but it was only 10% of French responders.

Across all three nations, on average 35% have spent their additional free time decorating or renovating and 60% watching more television. Nearly 70% of Brits and Germans have done more online shopping compared to only 42% of French. A third of the Brits surveyed have done their food shopping online, in contrast to only 10% of French and 20% of German responders. 

As governments around the world urge us all to retrain, 94% of Brits are sticking to what they know and have responded that they are currently happy in their jobs. 65% of us have made no effort to further our careers through online training and webinars.

Dan Plant from hotukdeals says “Surprisingly, only 61% of respondents said their lives have changed during lockdown. But it seems that, whilst the world has been in turmoil over the past year, Brits are comfortable in the safety blanket of their current job and haven’t seen the need to do very much to future-proof themselves.”

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Of the 5,561 responders to the survey, 1,101 were from the UK. The survey was also carried out in Germany, France, Italy and Spain.

About: hotukdeals is the UK’s biggest deal-sharing community where two million members find, rate and share the best deals from on and off the high street every day. Members use the temperature gauge to vote on deals so other users know that the hotter the deal, the stronger the offer. hotukdeals is a founding member of Pepper.com, the world’s largest shopping community:   Pepper.com was founded in 2014 by Fabian Spielberger (mydealz) and Paul Nikkel (hotukdeals). Through international partnerships and conversations, Pepper.com gives smart shoppers around the world a voice to share deals, tips and ideas, connecting members in twelve countries on four continents. The Pepper.com group is headquartered in Berlin, Germany with offices in Belo Horizonte, Guadalajara, London, Lyon, Mumbai and Winnipeg and consists of market-leading platforms such as Chollometro (Spain), Dealabs(France), DesiDime (India), hotukdeals (United Kingdom), mydealz (Germany), Pelando.com.br (Brazil), Pepper.com (The Netherlands), Pepper.pl (Poland), Pepper.ru (Russia), Preisjaeger (Austria) and PromoDescuentos (Mexico). 25 million consumers use these platforms every month to make 12,000 purchasing decisions per minute.

About: HolidayPirates is a leading travel deals platform and app, which curates and compiles the best travel deals from countless websites and travel partners for cheap flights, hotels, travel packages, vouchers, bus and train deals. The online portal is one of the fastest growing digital travel companies in Europe. Fans and followers stay up to date by setting custom alerts on apps; WhatsApp; following on social media; subscribing to newsletters or simply visiting one of the websites. HolidayPirates has websites in the UK, Austria, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain, Switzerland and the USA and each travel portal in the group operates fully independently of the operators and partners. The company has offices in nine countries. Igor Simonow founded HolidayPirates in 2011 in Berlin by sharing his knowledge of cheap travel deals on his blog. Today, the German edition Urlaubspiraten.de is among Germany’s largest travel portals. HolidayPirates receives +45 million page impressions a month and has +7 million Facebook fans.