00:01which destinations are you finding that are proving most popular this year and what's
00:05driving that sort of demand well it's one of the few years where there's been a simple and clear
00:10answer to that and the answer is greece there's quite a lot going on in the world at the moment
00:13there's a lot of places that are good or bad on various metrics if you're traveling to the
00:17european union this year obviously you are risking getting caught up in the entry exit system queues
00:23greece has uniquely simply turned it off for uk visitors only and i think the sensible thing for
00:29anyone who's thinking about a holiday and doesn't want to get snarled up in the queues to do is
00:34reward that by picking greece as their destination they've done it for us i think doing it back for
00:38them is something that we will enjoy a lot because greece is a great place for a holiday that's where
00:42we're seeing people going that's where the smart money's going in 2026 yeah do you think it's as
00:46a result of that uh the ease at the borders that's making people book it or are there other reasons
00:51to choose greece this year i mean greece has been second or third in the rankings ever since 2020
00:56so no it's a great place to go and there's lots of other places you can go and avoid any
01:00of you
01:01know any of the problems that we're seeing this summer uh if you want to avoid the entry exit
01:04system chaos if you go to ireland that's outside it cyprus is outside it much of the adriatic coast
01:10places like albania and montenegro these are all places you can go where the ees is not an issue
01:15where you have a great holiday and in many cases you know you have a lot cheaper one than if
01:19you'd been
01:20going to some of western europe so there's lots of places where people can enjoy a really good
01:24holiday this summer if they haven't booked already places where you'll be sensible to have a look
01:27now are there any places which have unexpectedly fallen in the rankings i mean i keep getting all
01:33the ads on youtube for visit usa and i've heard reports that fewer uk travelers are heading over that
01:40way oh usa is way down um i think we're seeing a number of problems in the usa one of
01:45course is
01:46that people are understandably reluctant to visit the usa given the trump administration's
01:51attitude to border we've seen european tourists on your absolutely valid visas uh detained without
01:57any sensible explanation you can also see that you stand the risk of your social media history being
02:02checked uh and being rejected at the border if it doesn't suit them so no there's lots of reasons
02:06uh i think when trump was re-elected a couple of years ago now um there was about 15 percent
02:12of uk
02:13travelers according to our poll said they were going to give the us a miss that's up to 37 percent
02:17so no there's there's a lot of uk holiday makers are giving the us a miss now uh for lots
02:22of reasons
02:23the world cup's not encouraging them then to get over there uh i think there's other problems there
02:29as well a lot of people are following the world cup of course but i think the price of the
02:33tickets
02:33to get into any of the stadiums is putting some people off uh one of the things that we've been
02:37recommending if you want to see the world cup and you want to have a holiday into it you could
02:41go to
02:41one of the nations that we're playing against i think if you've been in a bar in dubrovnik last week
02:45you can saw it with the locals in croatia you've had a much nicer time than in the us i
02:50think that's
02:50going to be true in a lot of places so no if you're following the england matches and you want
02:53to make a holiday of it you'll probably be able to do it cheaper and in some cases more safely
02:58and
02:58with fewer problems at the border than if you went to the us to see it in one of the
03:01stadiums there
03:02absolutely that sounds like a good tip i suppose sticking with cheapness and going back to my point
03:07about uh last minute deals uh for people who haven't booked is there still good value to be found
03:12for the summer or have most of those best deals already gone there was great value to be captured
03:17because one of the big changes we saw last week is the foreign office changed its advice on dubai
03:22you'll remember that at the start of the iran conflict the foreign office said it wasn't safe
03:25to go to either the united arab emirates or to qatar and effectively that turned off two of the great
03:32hubs in dubai and in doha the foreign office changed its advice on that at the end of last week
03:38so
03:38you can now fly to or through either of those hubs which means holidays to the far east in particular
03:43are cheap convenient and safe again in a way that they haven't been for months so it's still possible
03:48to bag a bargain if you want to stop in one of those two places and fly on to thailand
03:52australia
03:53vietnam anywhere in that part of the world really uh people haven't been able to book those because
03:58their travel insurance wouldn't have worked through those transit hubs now it does uh so those are going
04:02to be great places to bag a bargain there's always something you can do to get a cheap deal and
04:06right now
04:07that is it and there's been a bit of furore earlier in the year perhaps about uh possible flight prices
04:14climbing up because of uh conflict um is that something we should be overly concerned about at
04:20the moment at the moment still no actually the main airlines hedge all of their fuel purchases at the
04:26start of the year or in some cases last year while there is still only a trickle of fuel coming
04:30through the straits of homers and you know that's perfectly known public information uh there's only
04:36about 25 percent of the aviation fuel used in europe came through it in the first place so yeah that
04:41is
04:41increasing prices for the airlines uh but the airlines have hedged against that it starts to
04:46become more of a problem towards the end of the summer and towards the end of the year but for
04:50the
04:50summer holidays firstly the airlines can't surcharge you once you've booked your ticket so once you've
04:54booked that's the price you pay and secondly really we're seeing fairly normal prices for the time
04:59of year even given that the fuel hasn't started to run out and the hedges are still in place so
05:04no it's
05:05it's fine to buck a holiday this summer uh if the jet fuel problem becomes more of an issue we'll
05:10see
05:11it sort of trickle through in september october november and start of next year really
05:14you
05:15you
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