Welcome to the PATA UK & Ireland Chapter

We have seen a significant growth in multi-generational family travel across all of the Pacific Asia region in recent years – its been one of the main growth markets post pandemic. This has been recognised by hotels too and we have seen several properties begin to add more family rooms to their inventories or become more flexible with the bedding arrangements within the existing rooms that they offer. We are also seeing hotels come forward with more family offers and deals designed to appeal directly to the family market with significant saving on both additional and family rooms as well as benefits such as free kids meals. Some hotels are also adding more family friendly facilities such as enhanced kids clubs. play parks and activity programmes.

Families travelling together usually look to book multi-centre holidays that include experiences and excursions that enhance the holiday. Family friendly products such as the Elephant Hills Camps in Thailand have really seen sales thrive on the back of this. These are also the bookings where agents can maximise revenue returns with significant scope for extras such as day tours and attraction tickets. Families also tend to like to have much of their holiday pre-planned and this can also then include extras such as meal plans so that there are no additional cost surprises once in resort.

Families, especially those with younger children, do of course tend to travel during the popular school holiday periods. The usual message of booking early to secure what you want particularly applies here, not only to secure the best price possible but also to ensure that there is availability for those more particular requirements such as larger family rooms.

Do also stress the benefits of travelling in lower seasons to families too. This doesn’t just help with cost but also brings the benefit of travelling at a time when resorts are less busy and they can avoid the crowds. Hotels across the Far East in particular offer some amazing tactical offers during low seasons that can really appeal to families including free child places, free meals and complimentary upgrades to higher (and bigger) room types.

We expect the family holiday market to continue to grow in the coming years as families increasingly look to travel together and make memories with their loved ones. The Far East in particular also offers an affordability factor that often makes a long haul holiday surprisingly cost effective when compared to booking a holiday closer to home. As we all look to maximise the value of the money that we spend this will help drive more family bookings to this region.