Britain’s summer weather has improved, but many holiday operators are still gloomy | Travel & leisure

‘It has been awful,” said Russell Beale, who has been running a holiday cottage sleeping four on the Devon coast for 14 years. “Typically, we’re let for 26-34 weeks a year and full from Easter until the end of September. This year we’ve had less than 10 weeks of bookings.”

As the summer weather improved in August, he said, things had picked up a bit: “People seem to be leaving it really, really late.”

Beale is one of many holiday business owners and managers, predominantly from England, who shared with the Observer how they had been faring so far in 2024.

As early as spring, owners of holiday properties across the UK had reported a significant fall in bookings, with many blaming inflation, poor weather and an increasingly saturated market.

Beale said he had offered more flexible and shorter stays and a 30% discount in an attempt to boost summer bookings, even though this could mean he made a loss after cleaning and laundry costs, agency fees and mortgage payments.

“The weather hasn’t been great, but generally, I think everyone is just feeling the pinch, and life just seems expensive. When fish and chips is nearly £20, it’s understandable that people can’t afford to eat out, even on what were typical staples.”

Profits had always been meagre, Beale said, as running costs were high and constantly rising: “In our best year, 2021 we’ve made a profit of £7,000 or £8,000,” he said. “Last year we made about £1,500. This year we might break even, but I suspect we won’t. We’ve looked into selling, but have decided not to this year, because so many other people are.”

Beale’s experience chimed with that in other parts of the country, where several owners said they had put their holiday cottages on the market after a disastrous year.One owner of a self-catering holiday cottage in Wales, who wanted to remain anonymous, said 2024 had been the worst “in the 30 years I’ve been doing this”, with bookings “massively down, even with prices reduced to 2018-19 levels”.

The manager of a hotel in the Lake District, who wanted to remain anonymous, said there were big gaps in the calendar from mid-August through to October. They had had to slash prices to attract last-minute bookings, which began picking up three to four weeks ago.

“Guest expectations do not in any way match the reality of the prices they are paying,” they said. “Many expect a four-star hotel, which in this…