Save up to £161.58 on Single-Trip Winter Sport Insurance

Airport parking and Hotels (APH), the long stay airport parking and travel extras specialist, is helping skiers and snowboarders this winter by highlighting the best and worst winter sport insurance policies. The information compares the cost of 20 travel insurance providers for a single and annual multi-trip for a family of four in Europe and worldwide. Visit the ‘Know Before You Go’ section of the APH website, www.aph.com/skiinsurance, for further details.

The research found that skiers and snowboarders looking for a single trip to Europe should swerve away from HSBC with the family single trip policy reaching as high as £106.02, compared to OUL Classic at only £25.00 and APH at only £29.95. APH also offers the most competitive family annual multi-trip insurance in Europe at £49.95 and Insure & Go offering worldwide at £64, both including up to 17 days cover. However Lloyds TSB proved to be the most costly provider for worldwide annual multi-trip insurance and single trip insurance at a whopping £200.14 and £210.01 for a family of four.

Many of the travel insurance providers were also found to offer additional benefits on policies with children covered for free with Complete Ski and AA. Halifax, Sainsbury’s and Complete Ski also offer up to 24 days of annual winter sports cover on annual multi-trip policies, and nearly all the insurers include off-piste skiing and snowboarding with a qualified guide.

Nick Caunter, managing director of APH, says “winter sports insurance is a vital purchase for snowboarders and skiers, but it is important to compare levels of cover and the premium to get the best value for money so we felt it was important to provide a useful guideline in the Know Before You Go section of the website for travellers heading to the slopes this season”.

Airport parking and Hotels Ltd is one of the UK’s leading booking agencies and has over 29 years’ experience as a retailer of pre-booked airport parking and travel extras. APH offers parking at all major UK airports, ports and Eurotunnel terminals plus airport hotels packaged with parking, airport lounges, travel insurance, car hire and holiday taxis. APH is also a carbon balanced company and has through the World Land Trust helped purchase more than 1,000 acres of Belize rainforest.

Britons holidaying closer to home helped UK tourism enjoy a bumper July this year, figures today showed.

The number of trips taken in the UK by Britons involving at least one overnight stay in July 2009 rose 20% compared with July 2008, with spending rising 13%, the VisitEngland organisation said.

The number of trips taken for holiday purposes rose even more – increasing 32% compared with July 2008 and resulting in 2.1 million leisure holiday trips being taken than in July last year.

The July figures meant that the total trips (including business trips and visits to friends and relatives) taken by Britons in the UK in the first seven months of 2009 have risen 4% compared with January-July 2008.

A dip in business travel, however, has meant that the rise in spending on these UK trips by Britons in the first seven months of this year has been limited to just 1%.

VisitEngland chief executive James Berresford said: “These results are further proof that the great visitor product on offer in England is back on everyone’s lips, on their minds and here to stay.

“We intend to work with the whole of the English tourism industry to ensure this trend is sustainable through 2010 and beyond. We are seeing people shun outbound travel and opting to take a break in England.”

He went on: “There are still a number of businesses suffering, specifically those in the business travel market.”

Steve Chelton, insurer development manager for Swinton, the UK’s leading high street retailer of travel insurance, said: “So many people choosing to holiday in the UK will be a big boost to the local economy, especially for those areas of the country that rely on tourism.”

The misery of the recession is forcing millions of Brits to leave the country – that’s the finding of new research* from InsureandGo (www.insureandgo.com), the leading travel insurance provider. It found that an incredible 3.3 million Britons have recently been or intend to go travelling abroad specifically to escape the misery of the UK recession.

Of the 8.9 million people who have recently been travelling abroad for a month or more – or plan to do so soon** – a massive one in three (37%) said their reason for going was to escape the current doom and gloom in the UK.

The poor state of the job market is also a key factor in convincing people to move to foreign shores for a spell of time, with 5% of travellers, around 450,000 people, saying that being made redundant or being fired from work is responsible. Four per cent, over 340,000 people, have been spurred into travelling because they have resigned from their job, around half of whom did so as a result of a pay cut. Another four per cent have been or are going travelling because they think it will be easier to find work abroad.

Graduates are also going abroad to escape poor job prospects in the UK. Almost one in three (28%) of the students intending to take a year off after university to go travelling are doing so because they say they can’t find a job.

Perry Wilson, founder of InsureandGo, said: “People’s disposable income might have shrunk, but it appears that the seemingly constant flow of bad news in the UK is encouraging a lot of people to pay for a plane ticket and get away to foreign shores for a while. And who can blame them? Taking some time off is a great thing to do to escape the grind of everyday life, whether you are taking a career break or whether you’re a graduate embarking on a gap year.

“The joy of travelling can soon become a misery though if you are not properly prepared, so travellers need to ensure they take reasonable precautions, such as reading about their destinations in advance and making sure they have adequate travel insurance.”

Other reasons cited for going travelling include having personal problems, which 6% of those going travelling claim is their main reason for doing so, and taking a year off before university, cited by 3% of travellers.

InsureandGo’s backpacking policies offer a range of benefits such as a 24-hour worldwide emergency medical helpline, available 365 days a year, and automatically cover a wide range of adventure sports and activities including bungee jumping, white water rafting and jet skiing.

The number of holidays taken in England by UK residents rose 14% in the first six months of this year compared with the same period in 2008, VisitEngland said today.

That amounts to 2.6 million more holiday trips and more than 9.1 million extra nights holiday taken from January to June 2009 over the same period last year.

But with business travel falling, the amount spent on trips of all kinds – including visits to friends and relatives – fell 1% in the first half of this year.

The “staycation” phenomenon looks likely to continue into next year, as UK self-catering operator Hoseasons reported that its advanced bookings for 2010 were already up by 61%.

The figures were released today at the annual convention in Barcelona of UK travel organisation Abta.

VisitEngland chief executive James Berresford said: ‘England is back in fashion as Brits are rediscovering the diversity and appeal of the English holiday. It’s a trend that we’ve seen developing over the course of the last few years and one which we intend to nurture with the help of the tourism industry. “

He went on: “Clearly there are businesses out there still suffering, particularly those in the conference and events market so we are certainly not out of the woods.”

A spokesperson for a leading UK holiday provider said: “Without doubt UK holidays have always been popular, but in the last 10 years it has been a challenge for companies to adapt to a weak euro, low-cost flights and last minute booking trends. 2009 has given us the chance to turn the tide in favour of British breaks.”

Steve Chelton, Insurer Development Manager for Swinton, the UK’s leading high street retailer of travel insurance, said: “Even if holidaying in the UK, we’d strongly recommend purchasing travel insurance to protect against unforeseen circumstances. A weekend policy can cost less than £10.”