Every summer, millions of British travellers make the same decision before they book their holiday. Stay in the UK, or look abroad. Nowhere is that decision clearer than among the people already moving through the network, the regular users of motorway service areas, who look increasingly like a live sample of the nation's holiday mood.
25.2bn
Domestic tourism value in Q3 2025, up 11% YoY
87m
Overnight trips taken by Britons within England last year
+5%
Rise in overnight trips in Q4 202, with day visits up 2% too
VisitBritain's most recent domestic tourism results tell the same story across three different measures taken at three different points in the year, all pointing to the same choice. Zoom into the people already moving through the network, the regular users of motorway service areas, and that shift shows up even more clearly.
Meet the audience already sold on the UK
Regular MSA users are 14% more likely than the national average to have taken their most recent holiday in the UK, and 15% more likely to be planning one in the next 12 months. More than half, 53%, have taken two or more overnight UK trips in the past year, 29% above the national average, and nearly half say they now prefer a UK holiday to going abroad, well above the wider public.
The reasons are largely practical, not sentimental
The reasons for this change in holiday habits are manifold. Flight disruption and geopolitical instability are part of the picture: in a recent survey, BWH Hotels GB found that 79.7% of Brits are swapping overseas holidays for UK staycations this year, with 30% citing flight cancellation and disruption and 22% citing geopolitical instability. But cost matters just as much. Airfares have climbed by as much as 18% this summer compared to 2025. And a UK break is not just safer on a financial basis: many travellers are also wary of ongoing international conflict. Expedia Group's data backs this up: social conversation around domestic holidays is up 77% year-on-year, with 45% of Britons more interested in a UK break than they were last summer. An increase in cost pressures, and concern for International travel in the current climate are both likely to have contributed to the increase in British staycations this year.
This isn't a single moment. It's a season
While a single big calendar event has a clear start and finish, one weekend to get the timing right, planning around a staycation summer works differently. Activity builds with the start of school holidays and picks up again around each bank holiday, so a campaign running continuously through these windows will reach more of the audience than one timed to a single date.
Route matters just as much as timing. The M5 into Cornwall, the roads north into the Lake District, and the A30 carry a large share of this traffic, so weighting activity toward these specific corridors puts a campaign in front of people already on their way to destinations driving this demand. While the volume of people setting off may vary from one week to the next, the overall picture is clear: more staycations means more traffic along motorway corridors, means higher footfall at services stations en route to staycation hotspots.
The industry is planning around it
Confidence in this isn't limited to a single season. Barclays' latest Business Prosperity Index found that 79% of UK hospitality and leisure operators feel confident about their business's prospects for 2026. Budgets for next year are already being built around the assumption that this isn't a one-off.
That audience isn't showing up once, on one road, on one day. They'll be back next weekend, on a different road, heading somewhere else in the UK, in the same relaxed, unhurried mindset a campaign can't buy anywhere else. The only question is whether your brand is on screen for the whole run of it, or just hoping to catch them once.
Sources: YouGov Profiles (Jan 2026), VisitBritain, Domestic tourism: latest results (Q3/Q4 2025), 11 June 2026; BWH Hotels GB / BW Rewards customer study, via Hospitality Net; Expedia Group, Unpack '26 Summer: The Trends in Travel, via Hospitality Net; Barclays Corporate, Hospitality and Leisure: 2026 Outlook (Business Prosperity Index).
