The holiday revolution that's setting single travellers free
More than 15 million Britons, many of them women, will holiday alone this year.
Single travellers have become travel's fastest growing sector, and a phenomenon that tour operators are falling over themselves to catch up with.
The figures speak for themselves.
According to a recent Mintel report, 15.4 million Britons are expected to holiday alone this year, up from 9.6 million a decade ago.
Companies specialising in independent travel rather than packages have noticed still bigger growth - last year, Travelbag reported a 68 per cent increase in single bookings in the space of just 12 months.
The Association of British Travel Agents has even taken to lobbying hoteliers to build hotels with more single rooms. 'We've seen a sea change over the last five years,' says Derek Moore, chairman of the Association of Independent Tour Operators. 'People have become a lot bolder about travelling alone.'
The growing demand for more daring, exotic holidays is playing a BIG part.
While being alone on a week's package holiday to Spain might feel awkward, being single on an overland trip through Morocco or Nepal carries no such stigma.
The more adventurous the trip, the more natural it is to do it with a group of strangers.
Over the past decade, adventurous group tour operators like Exodus and Explore have expanded quickly, and around 70 per cent of travellers on Explore trips, for example, are single.
But travellers are increasingly happy to go it alone on independent trips too. 'There's far less of the fear factor,' says Jessica Potter of Travelbag. 'People have grown used to using the internet to research their own trips, then book flights and accommodation, so they feel more confident about planning their own trips alone.
What we're seeing a lot of now is people setting off alone, but then meeting up for part of their trip with friends who are travelling or working abroad.'
The boom in single travel is being driven by women.
On adventurous group trips, like those run by Explore, single women make up more than half of travellers, and internet agent Opodo reports 70 per cent of its single clients are women. Earlier this year Friendship Travel advertised for more men to join a singles group trip to St Lucia because so many women had signed up. 'Women today see being single as an opportunity to travel, rather than a hindrance,' says Judith de Witt of Rainbow Tours.
'At the moment you've usually got to join a group, or pay more,' says de Witt. 'As soon as we get beyond that, the singles market is going to take off to a whole new level.'