Extraction costs

By G.S. and L.P.

THE inflated price of “half-term” holidays is a common gripe. (British school years are split into three terms each of which has a one-week spring break-like “half term” in the middle.) The grievance is so widespread that an online petition, signed by over 160,000 people, sparked a parliamentary debate on the subject on February 24th. Although the government rejected regulating the industry, the price hikes are genuine and big. Our analysis suggests that the average mark-up on a trip during the school break is about 60%. The increase in costs is greater for trips to more exotic locations, like Turkey and Tunisia, where it almost doubles. Breaks to Ibiza and Majorca see some of the smallest mark-ups. (We scraped data on the prices of 400 package holidays from England to various destinations and with differing family sizes during the summer half-term and compared them with the weeks either side.)

Steep prices mean that some thrifty parents take their children out of school during term times. Bradford city council says it lost 41,000 school days to this type of extraction last year. When schools cotton on, they tend to block parents from withdrawing their offspring or sting them with fines. Councils can charge parents £60 per absent child per parent for each absence. So a family of four taking a week’s vacation during the term would have to pay £240. But this is a pittance compared with the possible savings from avoiding expensive half-term breaks. Indeed, for more than 90% of the holidays analysed it is worth parents taking their children out of school and paying the fine (if the cost of missed education is ignored). Educators are going to have to try harder to keep the kids in school.