Press release – UK lagging far behind EU in school group trip numbers

The Tourism Alliance is today publishing the results of a survey of 145 business who plan and organise school group travel. Collectively these companies brought 728,000 school children to the UK in 2019.

The survey finds that while trips school group trips inside the EU have already recovered to well above 2019 figures (108%) the UK has only recovered 61% of the school group travel market it had.

Operators lay the blame for this squarely at the changes to passport requirements at the UK border. 74% of operators said that the requirement for all school children to have a passport to enter the UK was an ‘extremely important’ barrier.