Baby it’s cold outside…Let’s go abroad – Delina Petiros

Over the past few years more and more people have decided to spend their Christmas away in other countries drinking cocktails by the beach, but why? Reports Delina Petiros

Dusting off old grandma’s recipes with your mom and aunties, drinking hot chocolates with your siblings and cousins, watching Christmas programs and singing Christmas carols can pretty much summarise everyone’s celebration of this festivity, but you’re wrong. This year, Nadia will fly to Cuba with her best friend exactly two weeks before Christmas Day. She is a working 21 year old girl who has always spent Christmas at home with her family until the age of 17 when her parents divorced and she moved to London. Ever since then she explains to me how every Christmas has never been the same and that’s the reason why she then decided she’d rather spend it with her friends. “This is the first time I’m actually going to a whole different continent and I couldn’t be more excited!” says Nadia about her upcoming trip: “I’ve stopped associating Christmas with cold weather and family over the years as I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s just a concept within people’s mind that I don’t have to follow”.

Youth are most likely to travel. (Image by Delina Petiros)

A survey conducted in the UK in 2016 of over 1500 people by YouGov, shows how 23% of people have already spent Christmas on foreign soil, whilst a further 42% have not but would consider doing so. On the contrary, a third (34%) have not and would not consider going overseas for the festive period.

Amongst the most desired destinations we have Spain, at a massive 17%, immensely popular for both people who have already been abroad for holidays and people who would like to go. The US and France are next with 14% and 10% of people that have already spent their Christmas there in the past.

Men are more likely to fly away in the future but the percentage of men and women who have previously been away is the same. Young people between the age of 18 and 24 seems to be the ones who tend to travel the most at Christmas with a good 32% but the majority of people who would consider to do so are between the age of 25 to 49 with an impressive 50%. This proves how Nadia is definitely not a single case but is instead a habit for the youth to follow her example.

This Christmas 24 year old Harry won’t be at home, he has in fact decided he will go to Italy with his girlfriend to celebrate Christmas with her on holiday: “I was a bit scared of the idea of not spending Christmas at home and I was especially worried about my girlfriend’s potential reaction, in fact I surprised her with tickets that I bought during the Black Friday weekend but luckily she was absolutely enthusiastic, right now we both can’t wait.”

Malcolm is a travel agent from The Sackville Travel Agency in Brixton. (Image by Delina Petiros)

However this “new trend” doesn’t seem to affect the traveling business: “Most of the people flying out are families, in fact only about 3% of our clients are people under 30 going away on their own”, explains travel agent Malcolm De Souza. In the agency young people tend to go on holiday in groups over the summer, whilst over Christmas travellers are mainly families going back to  their countries to visit relatives.

With a cocktail by the beach or a hot chocolate at home, what’s sure for now is we’ll all celebrate Christmas.