British holidaymakers enjoy some of the best deals in Europe, according to independent research carried out for Thomas Cook. But good family deals are harder to find and have to be booked early.
Two adults booking in London for two weeks' high-season half-board in Puerto Pollensa in Majorca would pay £1,166; the same holiday booked in Frankfurt would cost £1,516. But add two children to the booking and the Germans get the better deal; a family of four would pay £2,074 in a Frankfurt travel agency, compared with £2,295 for a British family.
Mystery shoppers from Cranfield University priced package holidays in four travel agencies in each of 12 European capitals in June for holidays in August. The British prices for Majorca, Europe's most popular summer destination, were the cheapest at £1,166, the same price as in Holland. In Sweden the same holiday would cost £1,856, while the Swiss would pay the most - £2,432.
But the researchers found that a British family booking in June for an August holiday would pay almost double the adult price, whereas the Germans - and the Swedes - paid much less for their children.
The reason for the discrepancy is that British travel companies offer free child places and other family discounts as an incentive for early booking. These places will have been sold long before June. Thomas Cook said it offered thousands of free child places on a first- come, first-serve basis when brochures are launched. Child places are usually less expensive than adult prices but this depended on the policies of individual hotels.
Thomson Holidays said it offered 100,000 free child places every year (a second child gets a discount) in selected hotels in its Skytours and Thomson Superfamily brochures; these have been available since the brochures were launched in May for summer 2004.
Ian Crawford, senior lecturer at Cranfield, said: "Germans are more child-friendly; they don't penalise you for having children."
The researchers found British package prices to be the cheapest in most of the popular destinations. A British couple would pay £1,268 for two weeks in Puerto de la Cruz, Tenerife, compared with £1,554 for a German couple, though again the German family would pay significantly less.
Two weeks in Orlando, Florida, would cost £1,866 for a couple booking in London, £2,377 in Italy. A Turkish holiday would cost £1,098 if booked in London and £1,759 if bought in Paris.
The good value may explain recent figures from Thomson showing that packages still account for almost half of all sales, despite the growth of independent booking and the success of the low-cost airlines.
· The ferry companies launched a new website - sailanddrive.com - this week claiming that families can make substantial savings by sailing and driving rather than flying and hiring a car.
