New findings exclusive for ABTA members, from the association’s Holiday Habits 2025-26 survey, reveal which consumer priorities are driving the booking decision.

ABTA presented survey respondents with some of the things people consider when deciding to book a holiday and asked them to rank these based on which ones they felt were the most important.  

While the detailed results will be shared with ABTA members only, the headline finding is that 45% of people ranked ‘destination’ as their most important consideration when deciding on booking a holiday, rising to 57% for those aged 65+years.  This was followed by just over a third of people (33%) saying ‘cost’ was most important and 12% who said ‘holiday dates’ were most important.

The research, ‘Driving the booking decision: An ABTA analysis’, revealed last week at a member event at WTM, will be available exclusively in the ABTA.com Member Zone.

The paper dives deeper into the results to show how the bigger ‘booking deciders’ can help members with their marketing and general business planning. It is segmented by six age groups and four life stages to support more targeted initiatives. 

Members can discover which groups rank ‘cost’ as their biggest booking decision driver and those to whom ‘sustainability’ ranks as their most important booking decider. The research also reveals who prioritises the importance of ‘the company providing the holiday’ and ‘holiday dates’ as factors driving the booking decision.

¹All figures in the press release are from ABTA’s annual Holiday Habits survey, carried out each summer by The Nursery Research and Planning (www.the-nursery.net) with a nationally representative sample of 2,000 UK adults. The 2025 survey took place between 21st July and 1st August.

ABTA’s Holiday Habits 2025-26 report is available for everyone to download from abta.com/holidayhabits2025-26.