Young shun work in favour of travel
Youth travel specialist STA has seen sales of round-the-world airfares soar by 25% compared to this time last year as more young people are opting to travel rather than find a job.
UK managing director Glen Mintrim said: "The job market is still very tough for young people in the UK. More and more are taking the opportunity to head off on a gap year trip to broaden their work and life experience, and bolster their CV with overseas work experience.
"For example, we’ve seen a 10% increase in sales of Working Holiday Visas for Australia compared to last summer, and 16% for New Zealand."
The key five gap year destinations for STA Travel UK are Australia, New Zealand, the USA, Thailand and Peru, which form the staple parts of most people’s gap year experience.
However there’s a new wave of destinations coming through, including Iceland (up 129% on last year) and Bali, Manila and Borneo (all are up more than 75% year-on-year).
"Off-the-beaten-track places such as Manila are pretty unknown still so have extra social media talkability, a factor which is becoming increasingly important to our customers who regularly post updates whilst on their travels," said Mintrim.
Southern Africa is increasingly being used as an international hub to explore Africa. Numbers to Cape Town and Windhoek are 35% and 38% respectively.
Linsey McNeill
Editor Linsey McNeill has been writing about travel for more than three decades. Bylines include The Times, Telegraph, Observer, Guardian and Which? plus the South China Morning Post. She also shares insider tips on thetraveljournalist.co.uk
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