Has the Kent sunshine - and the rain!!! - got you thinking of booking a summer trip? Well apparently today marks the start of a 6 week rush to get that perfect holiday planned.
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00:00Talk us through the science of six weeks as well, how that's sort of come across as that time,
00:06because we know, for example, if you're going to a really exotic location, you need time for vaccinations to set in.
00:14But, you know, there'll be room to budget and Pax Mart and having to book time off with work.
00:20So give us an idea of the sort of the science, the mechanics of those six weeks.
00:25So there's a number of different studies that we drew on for this.
00:28Firstly, six weeks is just the minimum amount of time that you need to get all the paperwork done.
00:34As you rightly say, if you ask the NHS, how long do you need for vaccinations? Six weeks.
00:38If you ask the passport office, how long do you need to fix your passports? Again, six weeks.
00:43So if you start from six weeks out, you've given yourself enough time to get all of that done.
00:48But more importantly, there's a number of studies that show six weeks is the sweet spot for savings.
00:53If you book your flights and your hotel with six weeks notice, you've already started to take advantage of some of the early deals.
01:00You're not paying the starting price, but you're not leaving it to the very last minute where, you know, you can probably get a last minute deal.
01:07But you don't really have any guarantee of getting the best destinations.
01:11The other factors involved here, firstly, when we looked at what's involved in booking a holiday, obviously people will book themselves a flight in a hotel and then think, great, my holiday is all sorted.
01:24But actually, six weeks is about the minimum amount of time that you need to sort out all the other things, all your extras at leisure.
01:32So, you know, let's think you're going to Turkey or Albania or Greece, a handful of very popular destinations.
01:38You've got your hotel and your flights. You've somehow got to get from your house to the airport at the UK end.
01:43You've got to get from the airport in destination to your resort.
01:47But if you're going to, well, let's say Albania, you know, you've got to sort out the currency.
01:52You've got to get charges. You've got to pack everything that you want to do.
01:55You've got to work out what you're going to do when you get there.
01:57And when we ran all that through our AI tool, it worked out that 42 days was enough time to do each of those things at reasonable leisure over the course of those 42 days.
02:10And more importantly, when we asked people, OK, if you don't do it at leisure, if you leave it to the last minute, two things happen.
02:16Firstly, you do everything in a panic and you forget things.
02:19And secondly, studies show that if you're doing it at the last minute, you're leaving things behind.
02:24And something like 20 percent of holidaymakers said, yeah, if they pack and plan at the last minute, they leave things behind that they definitely needed on that holiday.
02:33And that costs an average £140 in replacement costs and buying things in resorts.
02:37So there's all sorts of ways that giving yourself those six weeks to plan make it a more cost effective and more stress free and a much more pleasant experience to book.
02:47Plannings also can boost our moods.
02:49I know this for, you know, I'm working out travel for in September at the moment.
02:54It's definitely making me really excited about the trip.
02:57And we see that 97 percent of people say having a trip booked makes them happier.
03:02Tell us a little bit more about some of the, you know, the mental health and those kind of benefits and that side of things with booking trips.
03:09So we've asked people sort of two questions.
03:14One is how do you feel when you've got a trip booked?
03:17And as you rightly say, the answer is 97 percent of people say they feel happier when they've got a trip booked.
03:22And that benefit seems to last.
03:24This is one of the numbers that keeps coming up for about six weeks.
03:26That's for 42 days again.
03:28So people like to have a trip booked.
03:30And that six week period comes up, I think, because if you've got a trip booked, let's say, next year.
03:36OK, fine.
03:36You've got a trip in mind.
03:38You're not actively looking forward to it.
03:39It's not something that you're about to do.
03:41Whereas if you've got a trip in six weeks, you know, it's something that you're planning for.
03:44It's something you're working towards.
03:45It's something you're actively looking forward to.
03:46And recent studies that we've seen, actually, since we did our research, this only came out a couple of weeks ago, shows that the psychological benefits of having just been on holiday.
03:56So people come back and you ask them, OK, you've got back from the beach.
03:59How do you feel about things?
04:01The psychological uplift of having got back from holiday seems to last about six weeks as well.
04:05So you've got this six week planning period where you need to get everything done and you get the boost, the sort of health boost from that.
04:13You go on holiday.
04:14Obviously, that's lovely.
04:15And then when you come back, you've got six weeks after it to bask in that glow.
04:19And if you think about that, you've got six weeks before, six weeks after.
04:21Let's say you're going away for one or two weeks.
04:23You only really need two holidays a year if you just spend half of the year mentally either planning for a holiday or coming down from a holiday to get that health boost throughout most of the year.