2024 travel round-up: Tourism became a dirty word!
The year started off with the question: Where do you want to travel?
2024 started off with the question: Where do you want to travel? It was fun to answer as long-haul trips to Mauritius, East Africa, and Mexico were back on the bucket list. But by April the pitter patter of holidaymakers was no longer welcome. Sunseekers were told to Fuera (get out) in Tenerife with locals tired of their drunken antics and acting as if they owned the place. Anger spread and there were protests on the beaches. Venice finally introduced its €5 daily entrance fee and soon other European cities were railing against Airbnb and the takeover of historic centres by suitcase wheelers known as trolley people. It was a brat summer, and being a tourist became a dirty word. Experts described tourism as the devil, saying visitors were only interested in taking selfies to show off to their friends. There were also questions over climate change with this year’s plea to Europeans to take trains not planes to help cut carbon emissions. Bringing the year to a close, Chris Haslam, travel writer at the Times, posed a new question for holidaymakers: “Do we want to be part of the problem or part of the solution?” Here’s to finding some answers in 2025!
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January: Winter holiday sales were off to a flying start … Polling by Atol revealed 56 per cent of us were planning to take a summer holiday in 2024 with 51 per cent intending to travel abroad more than once … Everyone was talking about Shropshire (West Midlands, turn left at Birmingham) because it was named a top 10 “destination to watch” by Abta … Dubai was ranked the No1 destination in the world for the third year for quality accommodation, restaurants and plenty of things to do … The 2024 travel trends were named as sportcation and relactive, that’s not a typo, it’s relax and active, all at the same time … Also popular was the solo-moon, which is going away alone – with a group … An Alaska Airlines jet door blew out mid-flight, making an emergency with everyone arriving back safely … A German judge handed holidaymakers a partial refund after they were unable to relax on a sunlounger while on their Tui holiday in Rhodes, Greece … Travel website Kayak found Faro, the capital of the Algarve, southern Portugal was the No1 holiday choice this summer.
February: A five-star London hotel broke the £1k a night barrier … The Times travel editor Cathy Adams said 2024 was all about fun … The Daily Mail, travel editor Mark Palmer said he wanted to write more about the best breakfast buffets around the world … The Daily Telegraph travel editor Ben Ross predicted overtourism would remain the big theme … Financial Times travel editor Tom Robbins said the average price of a five-star hotel had reached four figures … The largest ship in the world Icon of the Seas by Royal Caribbean glided out of port in Miami, Florida – bigger than the Anthem of the Seas, which was the largest way back in 2015 … Britons had ditched their favourite city breaks Amsterdam and Barcelona for Krakow, Prague and Reykjavik … Holidaymakers wanted to cook, climb and cycle nowadays, as ghost hunting also made the top 20 activities … Edinburgh is great for ghost hunters btw.
March: Travel whisperer Simon Calder advised booking holidays six months in advance – saying there was no such thing as a last-minute deal … Jet2 came out top earning five-stars for customer service … Post Office Travel Money said sterling was strongest in Turkey, Kenya, Japan, Thailand, South Africa, Norway, Czech Republic and Vietnam … easyJet banned all animal attractions from its tours – including camel rides, performing sealions, trips to marine parks, zoos and animal performances … Visitor numbers at museums and galleries were still below pre-pandemic levels and not predicted to reach the heights of 2019 until the end of 2025 … Buying fridge magnets on holiday was good for us said scientists … Heathrow and Bristol airports warned passengers not to pack Cadbury’s Creme Eggs in their hand luggage as they break 100ml liquid rule … An Australian billionaire wants to rebuild a replica of the Titanic, ready to sail in 2027.
Have you seen our pictures: Kapow! We sold more pictures in 2024 which made us so happy. We were on a roll. We made the Art Newspaper, the City pages of the Daily Mail showcased our work – and our pix were turned into digital jigsaw puzzles. Wanna have a go? Play here! We’d like to thank everyone who bought our photos! Check out more and keep buying – they’re right here for sale on Alamy. ¥€$! #smallwins!
April: Tenerife told sun-seeking Britons to “Fuera” – get out … Locals were tired of their cheap, beer-drinking antics … King Charles opened up Balmoral Castle to tourists for the first time in its 170-year history … Gatwick was named the worst airport for flight delays – on average they ran 27 minutes late in 2023 … Thousands of flights had been attacked by “jamming” – when radio signals are so strong they drown out the GPS location of a plane, and it doesn’t know where it is, risking its safety … Venice finally introduced its €5 (£4.30) tourist tax for day-trippers to deal with overtourism.
May: Cunard’s Queen Anne sailed into Southampton ahead of its maiden voyage to Lisbon … Chalkmarks’s favourite cruise expert Kathy Taylor was on board – click here for the full Cruise Lowdown … There was a big row in the New Forest over hot drinks trucks turning it into a theme park … The wifi went down at Heathrow meaning the e-gates at passport control failed … Airfares between UK and its favourite holiday destination Spain were up 40 per cent … Tui was looking to make Albania its next big Mediterranean holiday destination … Vilnius was named the cheapest city break in Europe by Post Office Travel Money … A flight from London to Singapore suddenly dropped 6,000 ft in three minutes in a case of extreme turbulence … Time Out put out its Best Cities for Food guide … Naples, Italy, was crowned No 1 for being the birthplace of pizza … Jo’burg, South Africa, took second place for its huge kota sandwiches, bunny chow and mala mogodu (tripe stew) … And third came Lima, Peru – which, let’s be honest Chalkmarks has always ranked as our favourite place in the world for food.
JUNE: A survey by the French tourist board found that holidaymakers prefer Spanish and Italian food over French gastronomy … Oh tres bien! … Guidebook writer Philippe Gloaguen blamed tour operators for taking tourists to all the wrong restaurants … The aviation industry was expected to make £24 billion in profit in 2024 carrying 4.96 billion travellers across the world … Sir Tim Clarke, boss of Emirates, had a go at Heathrow calling it a Second World War airport … Doctors warned us that if we enjoy a tipple during our flight and then take a nap, we risk dying due to the affect of cabin pressure … Do what Chalkmarks does and pop your mini gin (get the ginger ale too) into your bag and crack it open on arrival in celebration of being alive – hooray … The orange paper rail tickets around since 1825 could be gone within five years as most of us now prefer having tickets on our phones … Post Office Travel Money calculated that many of us bust the budget while on holiday by £155, up from £135 last year … Just Stop Oil eco-activists ripped into the fence at Stansted Airport and sprayed two private jets orange … The latest social media trend when on a long-haul flight is to just sit there… and do absolutely nothing – it’s called rawdogging.
We’re on Bluesky, here: If you need some good news in your feed once a week, we’re on it. And if you love travel but you don’t have time to keep up, we’ll catch you up with our fact-packed, must-read weekly travel round-up…
JULY: According to a poll by Hotukdeals a seasoned traveller can say Pho and can use chopsticks … England fans booked out all flights from UK airports to Berlin to see England lose to Spain in the Euros final … Holidaymakers eating paella in Barcelona were squirted with water pistols by activists chanting “tourists go home” … A global Microsoft IT outage grounded flights across the world … Air France saw a decrease in travel during the Paris Olympic Games … Economists blamed Taylor Swift’s June gigs for the UK’s flat inflation … Venice’s €5 (£4.29) tourist tax for day-trippers to reduce overcrowding ended making £1.7 million … Bamburgh, Northumberland, was named the number one seaside town in Britain for its unspoilt beaches … Wizz Air said it had 47 new planes arriving in 2025 and would be adding Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Kuwait to its flight list … If you’re a beer and beach kinda person, Puglia, Italy (£1.74), the Algarve in Portugal (£2.04) and Sunny Beach in Bulgaria (£2.04) are where you’ll find the cheapest bottles of booze said the Post Office … Afghanistan saw its visitor numbers increase from 691 in 2021 to more than 7,000 in 2023.
AUGUST: Wizz Air was voted the worst airline for customer service by Which? magazine … Ryanair wasn’t far behind … There was a brawl in the Peak district at the famous Dovedale Stepping Stones involving a bloke with a pushchair … Peatland at Forsinard Flows, Sutherland, at the very tippy top of Scotland made the Unesco heritage list … The top staycay destinations were named as the Lake District, York, Edinburgh, Scarborough, Manchester, Liverpool, Newcastle, Berwick-upon-Tweed, Durham, and Cleethorpes … Long-haul hols to Mauritius, East Africa, and Mexico were back on the bucket list … Older travellers were buying up teeth-whitening strips, fake tan, hair masks, pedicure tools and LED masks to get holiday-ready … All UK airports had improved accessibility for wheelchair users … Eating fish and chips was the number one thing Britons wanted to do on a staycation … Oasis announced their long-awaited comeback with a reunion Live 25 tour … The boss of Ryanair, Michael O’Leary, called for a two-drink ban at airports saying passenger behaviour had deteriorated especially on routes to party islands Ibiza and Mallorca … Wetherspoon boss Sir Tim Martin, who has pubs at most UK airports, said: “We have had no complaints”.
SEPTEMBER: Booking trips last minute was keeping travel companies on their toes and prices down … Visitors to National Trust stately homes were less interested in membership but happy to drop in and pay for the day … Four in five people planned to spend the same or more on holidays in 2025 as they did in the past 12 months … Bruges was ranked top European city break for train travel getaways beating cities like Paris and Amsterdam … Flights from Europe to America could get 50 minutes longer to be more environmentally friendly … Virgin Atlantic announced its British sign language crew had more than doubled since last year … British Airway announced it was scrapping sheer blouses for women cabin crew.
OCTOBER: Michelin stars were being given to hotels, but were called keys … Buckingham Palace was crowned the most beautiful building in the UK … Greenpeace named and shamed the UK again for having the highest number of private jets flying to Nice, Geneva, and Palma de Mallorca … Shipmates on board Villa Vie Residences Odyssey should have been in the Caribbean but were anchored in Northern Ireland for four months … Italy’s Spanish Steps are actually French – and were at the centre of an international row … Families were taking more adventure trips instead of lie-on-the-beach holidays … Kuoni said demand for activity holidays in Africa and Southeast Asia had risen … South Africa was named the best value spot for British travellers this winter … Prague was banning organised night-time pub crawls with deputy mayor Jiri Pospisil saying he wanted a different class of visitor to the Czech capital … Visit Britain revealed its top 72 attractions including galleries, museums, historic houses and gardens … Here there are … A very bossy airport boss in New Zealand ordered a “max hug time 3 minutes” … On X someone wrote : “OMG, that’s not enough – hugging is a human right!”
NOVEMBER: The nightmarish news from the Labour budget meant travel would be more expensive for train tickets, flights and buses … The Old Bailey, where the country’s most infamous criminal trials are heard (think: Oscar Wilde, the Kray twins, the Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe), was opening its doors to tourists … At the World Travel Market in London Pedro Homar from Visit Palma in Mallorca said they were installing 50 cameras on beaches and moving people on when capacity reaches up to 90 per cent to deal with overcrowding … Martin Brakenbury, at ICRT Global suggested that historical cities such as Venice should be treated like theatres, and once a site is sold out, you go another day … Harold Goodwin, WTM responsible tourism adviser, said the selfie had put the holidaymaker at the centre of the photo to show off to friends … Mirko Lalli, from the Data Appeal Company said in Florence, Italy, residents don’t go into the city centre which is “owned” by tourists … Chris Haslam, travel writer at the Times, said the public had broken the rules of hospitality with cheap flights, cruise ships, Instagram and Airbnb facilitating overtourism … Women walking the Camino de Santiago have been warned to be vigilant after reports of “terrifying” sexual harassment … The new names for Snowdon (Yr Wyddfa) and Snowdonia (Eryri) were here to stay but no one could pronounce them … In 2025 Britons would take five holidays: one long-haul, two short-haul trips and two staycations … Other trends would include Bravecations, where you do something that scares you, and Heritage Holidays, where people travel to “find out where they come from” … Bratislava, Slovakia, was named the best value Christmas market trip for cheap food and booze … Bedfordshire might be getting a Universal Studios theme park in 2030. OMG, are you serious? Yes!
DECEMBER: easyJet said 90 per cent of us want to experience a different Christmas tradition … Travellers wanted to go to the Tivoli Lucia candlelight procession in Copenhagen, share a sauna in Finland and swing fireballs at the Stonehaven Fireballs in Scotland … Notre Dame finally reopened after five years … The UK Health Security Agency warned travellers of a rise in malaria and dengue fever – at their highest levels in 25 years … Scientists asked holidaymakers to start taking trains to travel around Europe rather than planes to cut carbon emissions … There’s no need to fly to the Balearics or the Canaries, they say … Malaga offers the same as Magaluf without destroying the planet … Their research also revealed that more than half of Britons take a trip to nearby countries such as Spain, Germany, France, Italy, and the Netherlands – all of which are accessible by rail.
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