A Study Shows Nearly 50% of Travellers Now Favour Solo Travel

*Using data from European solo travel bookings made between 1 February and June 30 2020 for travel June-September inclusive:

UK solo travellers have the highest average spend on flight & hotel packages
Post Covid-19, UK travellers are even more likely to travel solo than they were before
Top destinations for solo travellers are overwhelmingly short-haul

With the UK preparing to lift quarantine restrictions to a number of European destinations from 11th July Opodo, leading online travel agent, has analysed data from solo travel bookings made between 1st February and 30th June 2020 as well as data from its own online survey conducted between 6-21 May 2020, in order to reveal some early travel habits post-Covid-19.

Has our long spring and summer lockdown made us more adventurous? Opodo’s post-Covid online survey indicates that across Europe the appetite for solo and partner/spouse travel is equal (at 41.2%). However when it comes to British respondents, 47.6% reported an appetite for solo travel compared to 37.6% with a partner/spouse**. This is a substantial increase from the 9% of UK respondents who reported making an active decision to travel solo in Opodo’s pre-Covid Solo Traveller Survey***.

Packing for the weekend, or the week? When it comes to length of trips, bookings* made between February-June for travel between June and September also indicate that solo European travellers are most likely to book breaks lasting 7-13 days: a range of 24% to 32% of all solo trips booked are for stays of more than a week. Germans lead the pack in this trend - 32% of German solo bookings are for stays of between one and two weeks - while UK travellers bring up the rear: just 24% of Brits travelling alone have booked longer stays of 7-13 days while an equal percentage chose mini breaks of just 3-4 days.

The same bookings data* reveals that British solo travellers are overwhelmingly focussed on short-haul destinations. Additionally the data reveals that, when it comes to flight and hotel packages, solo UK travellers have the highest average basket spend: 336€ compared to the whole-group average of 283€. Switzerland (322€) and France (320€) are close behind us, with Italian travellers spending the least (220€).

*Opodo Data Extraction of solo bookings . Markets: FR, IT, UK, SP, PT, Nordics (SE, DK, NO, FI), DE, AT, CH + general with all markets. Bookings from 1 February 2020 to 30 June 2020 for travel this summer (June, July, August & September 2020)

**Post Covid Survey Question: Data collection period: 6-21 May 2020 using the methodology of an online intercept survey on the eDreams ODIGEO websites, designed & programmed internally. Total number of respondents: 6794 (France, UK, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Germany). UK 553 respondents.

***Pre Covid Solo Travel Research Conducted by One Poll for eDreams ODIGEO: 10,000 people who have travelled by plane were polled in Germany, France, Spain, UK, Portugal, Italy, Sweden and USA. 2,000 of these respondents were based in the UK.