Data for the week between January 4 and 10 shows that the Balearics is the sixth most booked destination. | DANIEL ESPINOSA

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Holiday bookings to the Balearics increased by 99.1 % last week, and have also risen by 193.5 % compared to the same period last year, although they remain 55.5 % below those recorded in the same week in 2020, before the pandemic, according to the TravelgateX platform.

Data for the week between January 4 and 10 shows that the Balearics is the sixth most booked destination, accounting for 8.8% of bookings managed by the platform, after the Canary Islands, Andalusia, Catalonia, Madrid and Valencia. The majority of bookings through TravelgateX are for two to five days stay, 46% of the total. 52.9% of the bookings are made by couples and 20.7% by single people.

In terms of how far in advance the bookings were made, 31.9% booked more than 90 days in advance of the trip; 13.1% booked between 30 and 60 days in advance; 11.5% booked between four and seven days in advance; 10.6% booked between 15 and 30 days in advance; and 10.5% booked at the last minute, either on the same day or the day before.

Domestic tourism is dominating the market: among the main nationalities who have booked to Spain in the last seven days via Travelgate, Spaniards enjoyed a 56.9% market share, but with regards to international bookings, Britons booked 25.2% of the holidays and the Germans just 2.3%.

And, in the wake of UK travel restrictions being eased over the past weeks, it appears that Britons are planning spending sprees on more holidays this year.

Research from airline easyJet reveals that Britons are planning more holidays than usual in 2022 and will spend more on them than ever before this year, in a bid to make up for lost travel experiences over the last two years as a result of travel restrictions.

Sophie Dekkers, Chief Commercial Officer at easyJet said: “We know that there is pent up demand with many desperate to get away this year, which we continue to see each time restrictions are removed.

This survey further underlines the fact that people want make up for lost time as soon as they can and so we welcome the government’s decision to remove the unnecessary and costly pre-departure testing for travellers, now only requiring one lateral flow test on arrival. This will make travel much simpler and easier and means our customers can book with confidence and are hopeful that completely restriction free travel will return soon.”

More than half of Britons (55%) say they plan on taking more than two holidays this year, 50% say they will go on more holidays in 2022 than they normally would and a third are planning to spend at least £1000 more than usual on their 2022 holidays as a result of having had their travel plans disrupted by travel restrictions across Europe.

Nearly half of those surveyed (47%) plan on going on a ‘holiday of a lifetime’ this year to make up for the past two years of less travelling, with around two-thirds (65%) prioritising a trip abroad in 2022. The research also reveals that among those surveyed, June 2019 was the last time the majority of Brits went abroad for an adventure.