Britons are keen to look for value for money when it comes to planning their main annual holiday and this may have an effect on the destinations they choose to visit.

Nigel Pocklington, the managing director for Hotels.com, advised that Britons shop around to find the destinations where either the pound has held on to its value or where there has been a sharp drop in rates.

People in the UK feel a real need to get away from it all and leave their stresses behind by jetting off on a summer holiday.

Ian Bradley, public relations officer at the Association of Independent Tour Operators, claimed that this was because Britons continued to view their annual break as a necessity rather than a luxury and that such a trip is likely to count as many people's biggest expenditure after a house and a car.

Holidaymakers in the UK are unlikely to sacrifice their annual vacation, but may now be on the lookout for alternative destinations in order to get the most for their money, one sector commentator has claimed.

Frances Tuke, a spokesperson for the Association of British Travel Agents (ABTA), explained that Britons were keen to safeguard their once a year getaway and that factors such as the euro and dollar exchange rates would have an effect on where they went.

Holidaymakers and business travellers planning to jet off to the United States have been warned that they will soon have to apply for permission to enter its borders 72 hours in advance of flying.

According to the online resource TravelMole, airlines will now be required to comply with the Electronic System for Travel Authorisation, which will become mandatory on January 12th 2009.

Despite having months to get the running of Heathrow's Terminal 5 right, its operator British Airways (BA) failed to do so.

Such is the opinion of a spokesperson for The Air Transport Users Council (AUC), who was responding to recent criticism of the facility by a group of MPs.

The number of young people planning on taking a gap year to travel before beginning a degree course is falling, it has been claimed.

An article in the Guardian yesterday (November 5th) noted that such trips had become a rite of passage for many, but rising living costs are now putting many students off having such an overseas experience.

Britons are now less likely to collect travel brochures when planning a holiday, preferring to research a trip online instead, a new poll has found.

According to online resource Travelmole, the survey by the webTV travel site Holiday '09 found that six out of ten adults no longer request the traditional vacation leaflet.

A greater number of Britons have found the potential of buying property abroad tempting due to the availability of cheap flights, the Independent reports.

Writing for the publication, Laura Latham notes that low-cost airlines serving France and Italy have seen more holiday homes being bought in the regions.