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More than one in ten UK adults (12%) have already been on holiday in 2025, while a third (33%) have travel plans for the UK and over two in five (42%) already have plans to go abroad this year. These are just some of the holiday planning highlights outlined in the publication of .

The IPA Insight Pulse Poll of 2000 people aged 18+ was commissioned by the IPA and conducted by Opinium at the beginning of February. It reveals that while 75% have either taken or plan to take - or take further holidays this year, a quarter of UK adults say they have no travel plans for 2025 and 8% are planning to cut down their travel plans for the year ahead.

Popular times to make reservations and take holidays

According to the data, those with travel plans within the UK are planning to make their reservations either in May (17%) or August (16%); on the other hand, those thinking of a holiday abroad are more likely to book it around April (15%).

April (20%) and May (19%) 2025 are set to be the most popular months to holiday in the UK, while June (19%) and September (18%) are currently the most popular amongst those who are planning on travelling abroad.

On average, UK adults book their holidays 17 weeks – or around four months – in advance. Women tend to book earlier than men (18 and 16 weeks respectively) as do those in Gen X, who organise their holidays with 19 weeks to spare. Interestingly, Gen Z and Silent generations are the ones that book with the least time to go, 14 and 15 weeks in advance respectively.

UK adults spend around a month researching their destination before booking

Over 9 in 10 UK adults who book holidays (91%) spend some time researching their destination before booking, just under a month on average. Interestingly, while Gen Z tend to have the shortest time between their booking and their holiday, they are also the generation that spends the most time researching their destination, 4.3 weeks compared to the overall average of 3.8.

Review sites top list of booking recommendations

Review sites (40%), recommendations from family, friends, or colleagues (31%), and hotel and airlines websites (31%) are the main resources UK adults use to conduct research before booking a holiday. Overall, one in five uses social media (20%) but that figure almost doubles among 18-34s (36%). Meanwhile, one in twenty (5%) do their research with AI tools or chatbots.

Commenting on the findings, IPA insight lead Caris Brett said:

“Amid a gloomy start to the year both in terms of weather and geopolitics, it appears UK consumers are understandably keen to start planning or, indeed, have already made their holiday escapes. It is also interesting to see consumers taking advantage of the combination of a late Easter and the Early May Bank Holiday in terms of taking time off in the UK in April and May.”