One of the top figures in the travel industry is calling for drastic changes in the school calendar, to give families the chance to holiday away from the summer peak.
Julia Lo Bue-Said, chief executive of the Advantage Travel Partnership, said record temperatures in the Mediterranean were making reform of the current system imperative.
“We see trends that are really impacting how families are thinking about holidays now,” she told The Independent’s daily travel podcast. “With 40C weather in parts of Europe, families just do not want to be going to those destinations at that time of year.”
Ms Lo Bue-Said believes the main summer holiday – currently from late July to early September in England and Wales – should be shortened by two weeks. Each week saved could then be added to the current May and October one-week half terms.
She said it would be “better for children, better for their wellbeing, better for families, better for teachers, better for anyone that’s constrained with having to go during the school holidays.”
Parents who take their children out of school face fines of £80 or more. The government says: “All schools are required to consider a fine when a child has missed 10 or more sessions (five days) for unauthorised reasons.”
Eight out of nine fines for unauthorised absence are issued for term-time holidays.
“Frankly, people are traveling out of school holidays,” the Advantage chief executive said. “We're seeing exceptional increases in fines by schools now to families.
“The change is happening, people want to reconsider the school calendar.”
She said holiday prices could fall if demand were spread across the year.
A leading aviation figure, Jonathan Hinkles, has argued for holiday dates to be spread across a wider range of weeks rather than “just 13 weeks of peak demand during the school holidays.”
He said: “School terms in England and Wales follow a near-identical pattern with 13 weeks of holiday per year – confining peak travel demand into 25 per cent of the year.
Mr Hinkles suggested the October half term, February half term and main summer holiday could be offset by one week each for some parts of England and Wales.
“This would take holidays from 13 to 16 weeks of the year – a 23 per cent increase.”
Families in Scotland, where school summer holidays tend to run from the end of June to mid-August, can take advantage of cheaper deals from English airports during the early part of the break.
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