Travel bookings climb to 14m

Britons made nearly 14 million travel bookings in 2007, travelmole.com reports.

Figures released by the Guild of Travel Management Companies (GTMC) records all forms of travel transaction in Britain, from hotel reservations to booking a flight or purchasing travel insurance.

Among the more surprising statistics were a 23 per cent increase in rail bookings and a massive jump in 'other transactions' including booking travel insurance, airport car parking and passport services, up 27 per cent to 676,000 transactions.

GTMC chief executive Philip Carlisle admitted that he was surprised by the results.

"In the end, 2007 turned out to be even better than we had hoped. At the end of our third quarter, I was predicting that we would top 13 million transactions. In fact, that proved to be a conservative estimate, as we ended the year just 40,000 bookings shy of the 14 million mark," he said.

Mr Carlisle also said that passengers seemed to shrug off fears of an economic slowdown.

"While our leaders were warning of a spectacular slump, Britain's business community took no notice and got on with the job of boosting the UK economy," he added.

The trend towards offering extra services such as travel insurance and visa services has allowed companies to offer their customers a better travel service.