British more worried about unrest than price when planning holidays

Reports of riots in overseas destinations topped the list of factors that would put UK travellers off, the poll by foreign exchange company Caxton FX found.

The next most-popular reasons to avoid a particular holiday were seeing poor feedback about the destination online and bad reports from friends or family.

These outweighed the cost of flights as a deterrent, with those aged 55 or over most concerned about political unrest.

The survey of more than 2,000 holidaymakers showed that those aged 25 to 44 were most influenced by travel review websites such as TripAdvisor, with 33 per cent in this age group saying they would avoid certain places if they read bad reports online.

Only 21 per cent of 18-24-year-olds were influenced by holiday reports from their family, compared with 38 per cent of 45-54-year-olds who took heed of what their relatives thought about trips.

The survey also showed that poor exchange rates were a concern for 14 per cent.

However, only 6 per cent worried about not being able to speak the local language.

Caxton FX managing director James Hickman said: “Clearly, consumers are increasingly sensitive to the news agenda, as the Greek riots, the eurozone crisis and the ever-growing importance of peer-to-peer review sites such as TripAdvisor are all affecting our holiday-making decisions in 2012.”