People now have a limited amount of leisure time and more personal disposable income available, encouraging them to take ‘multiple mini-breaks’ throughout the year rather than one long holiday. City breaks of one to three nights serve this purpose well and in 2003, 30% of holidaymakers took three or more city breaks in the UK.
In 2003, around 23.7 million Britons took a UK city break, defined as a trip of at least one night (normally one to three nights) that involves staying in one or more cities for a majority of the stay. In 2004, it was estimated that in the previous five years, around 45% of the total UK population had been on a UK city break. [3]
Just under half of all city trips are holiday-based, although a significant number of these include visits to friends and family and are not pure ‘holidays’. VFR accounts for 27% of all city trips and 41% of all VFR trips are taken in large cities and towns. Business tourism accounts for 22% of city trips and 34% of expenditure. [1, 5]