Northern cities top destinations for holidaying Brits this summer

Laterooms.com has released data showing how its British customers holidayed at home and abroad this summer.

London, Manchester, Birmingham and Edinburgh remained at the top of a 10-strong list of favoured city break destinations, a trend that has remained virtually static for the last five years.

Of these top ten most popular UK destinations in July and August, six were northern towns or cities, with summer events like the Edinburgh Fringe and Manchester Pride generating strong visitor numbers.

Edinburgh topped the UK’s most expensive destination during August, due to the Edinburgh festival, where room costs increased by 75% on January (the most economical time to visit the city) and averaged £20 per night more expensive than London.

Larger coastal resorts such as Blackpool, Brighton and Bournemouth continued to enjoy a rise in visitor numbers, and sit atop the list of the UK’s most popular seaside towns and cities. Blackpool, in particular, has been part of a retro revival that has seen other traditional resorts including Southend-on-Sea, Margate and Skegness also witness a boom in bookings.

Old favourite Weston-super-Mare returned to rude health following the catastrophic fire that wrecked the Grand Pier’s pavilion in 2008, jumping 13 places since 2011 to rank as the UK’s 10th most popular overnight coastal resort. With visitors expected to have ploughed an extra £7m into the local economy this past summer alone, hoteliers have seen booking numbers jump as many look to visit Banksy’s acclaimed Dismaland exhibition.

But for every classic comeback there has been an up and coming seaside resort making waves: Amongst some of the coastal villages that boomed this summer were Burry Port in Carmarthenshire (up 180%), Anstruther on Scotland’s Fife coast (up 166%), Anglesey’s Treaddur Bay (up 114%) and South Hayling in Hampshire (up 136%).

Andrea Tarpey, spokesperson for Laterooms.com said: “As we’d expect, people seem to be mixing it up in terms of where they like to travel to, depending on what sort of a break they’ve opted for – whether it’s a seaside getaway with the kids, a city trip with friends or maybe a romantic escape to the country. We’ve seen hotels in locations not traditionally associated with a summer holiday do very well too.”

The most popular European destination this summer was Amsterdam while Paris, Rome and Barcelona also proved popular with travelling Brits.

The continental drifters also showed themselves happy to brave the Dubai summer heat, with the city in the desert ranking most popular non-European destination for the second year in a row. Kuala Lumpur rose from sixth to second in the popularity stakes while Bangkok was third.

Top 10 most popular destinations by category on LateRooms.com in July and August 2015: