Summer Season Trends

Oliver

Last month the Mediterranean opened for the summer season and we saw many clients visiting Greece, Spain and Italy amongst others. May is also a popular month for clients travelling to the America’s and for cruises too. We summarise the most popular destinations below and highlight some of the key booking trends for 2024 so far.

It seems the post-pandemic travel rush is slowly settling somewhat and whilst destinations made popular via TV, film and social media such as Sicily (pictured below), Andalucia in southern Spain, the USA and some of the Greek Islands are still commanding high peak travel prices, other destinations such as Portugal, South Africa, South-East Asia and parts of Eastern Europe are offering excellent value this year. This is due to various factors from strong currency conversion, the local economic climate and being a lesser known destination.

A selection of our latest travel trends…

The New European Grand Tour: Sicily, Sardinia & Corsica
This combination has been particularly popular with our Australian & American clients who find the Pound and Euro great value for them right now. Combining each island in one trip is a great way of experiencing three similar yet contrasting destinations in a short space of time. The main challenge is availability as their summer season is very short with the weather best from June to September. Read more.

USA & Canada
May was very popular for trips to Canada for the Rocky Mountaineer as well as trips to Toronto, New York, Orlando and Hawaii. The main feedback from clients is the rise in additional costs such as tipping and also resort fees. We are fully aware of the implementation of the latter and there are some new rules coming into play to ensure these are clearly marked. Part of our service is to investigate these thoroughly and make sure you are aware of any local charges that my be applied whilst away.

Holidays by Rail
These have been incredibly popular this summer, whether it be travelling from the UK by train down to France, Spain and onto Portugal as an example, or flying over and touring around by train. We thought we would share some recent feedback from Mrs West who recently travelled on one of these trips:

‘We have recently returned from a fantastic rail trip to Spain and Portugal taking in Barcelona, Madrid, Seville Lisbon and Porto. We probably could have arranged this holiday independently but we know that using RB helps ensure that everything will be tailored to our requirements and will run smoothly. It’s also comforting to know that in the unlikely event of something going wrong, that we can contact the RB concierge service for assistance. Huge thanks to Kayleigh for sorting out travel arrangements and for her excellent advice on accommodation and activities in each location.’ Mrs West, May 2024

River Cruises
The Danube was the most popular river for us last month. In the past few weeks we have also made bookings on the Douro in Portugal and we are currently working on a trip on the Mekong from Vietnam into Cambodia, where Oliver visited a few years ago.

Also popular this summer so far: Malta, Madeira, Sorrento, Peru, Montenegro, Halkidiki and Cyprus.

In terms of new bookings over the past month, popular destinations include Scandinavia, Greece, Italy, India, Kenya and Portugal have all been popular.

Back Share

Great cruise, boat, taxi, hotel, meal (and more!) arrangements in Athens and Corfu. Oliver has this amazing ability to know what we would enjoy, which is why I've already booked my next trip with RB! To the Carribbean we go in November!! 🥳 Thanks Oliver and the entire team at RB!

Zain Qazi

‘As usual, Sam at RB Collection arranged our recent Iceland/Scotland cruise with attention to every possible detail. He remembered what had worked for us previously and used that knowledge to enhance our experience. No question was too much trouble for either Sam or his colleague Clare. We would not consider anyone else for our holiday arrangements; RB Collection are truly superb!’

Hilary Carroll

Wonderful way to book a wonderful holiday. Such a personalised & attentive approach to helping us find the perfect family holiday! Couldn’t recommend more!!!

Pandora Bahrami

They found us the perfect hotel for our London stay. Exactly the right balance of perfect location, incredible breakfast and they really listened to what we wanted. I even had access to one of London best gyms included in the stay!

Katie May Medley

RB Collections are a wonderful family run firm who welcome you into the family from the first holiday you book with them. My special thanks go to Clare who always ensures my booking runs smoothly and takes the stress out of the process of decisions by ‘knowing’ and implementing my preferences using information she has ascertained from previous bookings. I don’t have to remember…..Clare does it for me.

Janet Goodwin

Having just returned from a fantastic long weekend at Disneyland Paris, we had to leave a review for Sam and the team at RB Collection. They removed all the stress from organising the trip and ensured everything was in place for a truly memorable trip for all the family. We can’t thank them enough and we will certainly be back for future holidays. Our experience has been 10/10 👍🏻

Mike Boyden

Just returned home from a wonderful holiday in Madeira arranged by Sam from RB Collection. Every detail from flights, hotel, transfers, recommended restaurants and "must to do's" was excellent and all documents arrived by post in good time for checking before departing on our holiday. Due to the weather, our journey was delayed by two days. However after contacting RB on the emergency number in the holiday package, all was sorted by the team - an upgraded hotel room at the same hotel, flight, transfers, taking away all the stress from ourselves and allowing us to enjoy our extra two days. One cannot put a price on a phone call and text messages when something unfortunate happens and you feel vulnerable. On our return, the excellent service has continued by Sam and colleagues who are now dealing with the necessary correspondence with the airline company. My husband and I and children at home who were concerned when we were stranded, cannot thank the team at RB enough for their support and professionalism and we are looking forward to many more holidays using the company. Tom & Janet

Tom&Janet Marks

We came to RB Collection with an idea of some of the places we wanted to visit in Rajasthan, India - and they made it all happen, expertly and efficiently. Oliver and Clare were a pleasure to deal with, sorting every aspect and adding their own ideas to really enhance this wonderful trip. They checked in while we were away to make sure everything was going well (which it was) and I knew they'd be on hand if we needed anything. Thank you!

David Page

The purpose of this review isn't to confirm that our holiday was a 5 star experience (which it was, by the way) but it's a review to say that RB Collection's involvement in planning, booking and safety netting our holiday experiences has been truly 5 stars. Are people bothered if my wife and I had a great holiday - I suspect no...... Are people interested in the company that was instrumental in creating 5 star holidays - I suspect yes ......and so it's RB Collection's skills and involvement that get this 5 star rating. As a family we have booked our own holidays almost exclusively by ourselves for 35 years - until a year ago when we used RB Collection's services for the first time to book a holiday to the Ice Hotel in Sweden. We chose to book through them because we had no experience or knowledge of the Ice Hotel and their exclusive Ice Hotel Website was great. Their involvement made all the difference - in particular their personal commitment to making things work and since the first contact, they have been getting to know our travel "needs, wants and likes" more by each contact. Our next holiday was a Silversea Cruise - one that we could easily have booked ourselves, but RB's influence allowed us to save a significant (4 figure!) sum. Reason alone to recommend! Our third and most recent booking with RB was a safari which could not have been a better holiday experience. The reasons for this are as follows: 1. Up until raising the possibility, I knew nothing about safaris i.e. where to go / at what time of year / for how long etc. Within 72 hours of a discussion of a suggestion by me for a Tanzania trip (based on a google AI search), I was infinitely far better informed and after weighing up possibilities, we opted for a Kenyan trip to Amboselli and the Masai Mara. What a brilliant decision! 2. Whilst the travel options were perfect for our particular needs, RB's involvement to seamlessly arrange the multiple transfers on our journey came to the fore. This was particularly evident on coming back from Zanzibar (beach unwind) to Nairobi International, which would have presented a significant challenge had we opted for self booking, due to the (multiple) security & immigration stages. (Yes, of course - we would have negotiated the stages - we're grown ups - we can look after ourselves, but oh my. the loss of wasted heartbeats would have been significant!) Turns out that what was arranged for us was faster than "fast track" and I certainly became aware of lots of people looking enviously towards us and our safari representative as we whizzed by! 3. Photography is an important aspect of our holidays. Good photographic subjects / scenes are our means of ensuring that we're seeing good stuff, which - IMHO - is a main focus of a holiday. Our safari guides had been well briefed about my photography wishes and from the get-go, they discussed what we were looking for from our holiday and so every day we had a mutually planned itinerary for the wildlife that never disappointed. Our guides had been particularly selected from the briefing given by RB pre-travel to the safari people. In a nutshell, RB have changed our attitude to holidays and their associated experiences. In our time with them, we have undertaken holidays that we have never done before and we are now definitely thinking differently about what to do in the future. Add to this, the reassurance and safety net that travel agency booking confers and I think that RB Collection definitely deserves a 5 star review. By the way - we live distant to their location - all of our dealings have been by telephone and email so don't think you need to be locals to use their services.

Colin Scott

A big shout out for RB Collection ….they have done it again !!!! Made our World touring a pleasure AGAIN ….having done the cruising in various parts of the world …the Canada trip…..the India & Nepal trip…& just recently the Hongkong Australia New Zealand trip…it’s like being transported on a Dreamliner !every attention to detail from getting to the airport arriving at the destinations & being picked up & taken to the various types of accomadation ….Thanks Team RB & especially to Sam for this last one 🌴☀️😎

Linda Taylor

call: 01543 258631 email: vip@rbcollection.com

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