A fifth of those polled admitted they were happier staying in a hotel and visiting tourist-friendly areas than experiencing new places and cultures.
The study, conducted by travel retailer Holiday Hypermarket, polled more than 2,000 Brits and found that their top priorities abroad were shopping, finding an Irish bar and taking a picture with a famous landmark.
Though experiencing a new culture was important to around half of surveyed holidaymakers, tanning by the pool and spending time in waterparks were also high on the list of priorities.
But some travellers were more adventurous than others. While the results show that the most popular destinations are still unsurprisingly Tenerife, Majorca and France, many holidaymakers are also branching out to lesser-known spots such as Iceland and Croatia.
‘’We’ve found Brits are getting more adventurous in choosing a place to go on holiday,” says a spokesman for Holiday Hypermarket, “but the results still show a reluctance in many to step out of their comfort zone when in a foreign country.”
One in three admitted that finding English food was a priority while abroad, with one in ten having asked for a bacon sandwich when on holiday — presumably in English, given how learning the language was revealed not to be a priority for 21 percent of adults.
Of this 21 percent, many admitted to not bothering with the local language as “everyone speaks English” abroad, but for 38 percent of these people, it was anxiety rather than laziness that prevented them from communicating with the locals — with fear of pronouncing things wrong a major deterrent for learning basic phrases.
The majority of adults polled also believed that Brits needed to make a better impression than other tourists when visiting a different country, with 69 percent acknowledging that UK holidaymakers have a reputation for behaving badly while abroad. Many, however, believed that all Brits are unfairly tarred with the same brush, and that the reputation is not entirely warranted.
