As part of ongoing research into the holiday habits of Britons, an online cruising travel agency conducted a study of UK adults aged 40 and over in a bid to discover how many different countries across the World they have visited in their lifetime so far.

In a bid to discover how many different destinations across the World British holidaymakers had visited in their lifetime, an online cruising travel agency conduct a poll of 2,109 Britons aged 40 and over to investigate the matter further.

The study, conducted by www.bonvoyage.co.uk, initially asked the respondents if they considered themselves to be ‘frequent’ cruisers, to which almost a fifth, 18%, answered ‘yes’. These respondents were then asked to estimate how many different countries they had visited in their lifetime so far, to which the average answer was ‘19’ different countries.

In order to make a direct comparison, the respondents who hadn’t ever been on a cruise holiday were asked to estimate how many different countries they had visited in their lifetime. Unlike the respondents who considered themselves to be regular cruisers, the average number of countries visited by dry-land holidaymakers was ‘5’; just over a quarter of the number of countries visited by the respondents who claimed to have been on cruises regularly.

Respondents who had been to less than 5 countries in their lifetime so far were asked to explain why they had not visited any more. The majority, 51%, mentioned that they tended to re-visit the destinations they liked to ‘avoid disappointment’ whilst 12% felt their financial situation was a limiting factor.

Respondents who had managed to visit 15 or more countries in their lifetime so far were asked why they felt they had been lucky enough to do so; the majority, 33%, put it down to their cruising habits, whilst 21% stated they had been in a good financial position.

Of the total number of respondents polled, a third, 32%, stated that they aimed to visit a further 10 countries in their lifetime.  A further 14% of the respondents who weren’t regular cruisers cited that they would like to experience more cruise holidays in their lifetime.

Chris Brown, co-founder of bonvoyage.co.uk, spoke about the results of the study,

“It could be assumed that cruisers would have visited more countries than those who choose to holiday on dry-land; however I did find it surprising that cruisers visit almost quadruple the number of destinations other holidaymakers do.  One of the many benefits cruises have to offer is the option to travel the world and experience different locations on the same holiday.”

He continued,
“However, many dry-land holidays do offer excursions in which holiday makers can enjoy a short trip over to the neighbouring country; these excursions do often come at an extra expense, but they do allow you to holiday within a holiday!”