Brits abandon three million lilos after holidays

- Survey finds that 2.7 million inflatables are left at holiday destinations
- Abandoned lilos could form an inflatable bridge from London to Egypt’s Red Sea coast.
- 57% say they won’t reuse a free lilo provided by their hotel

British holidaymakers abandoned almost three million lilos after their holidays in 2018, enough to build an inflatable bridge from Gatwick to the popular resort of Hurghada on Egypt’s Red Sea coast.

In a survey of 2,000 people by package holiday specialist Holiday Hypermarket (https://www.holidayhypermarket.co.uk/), 25% said they left their lilo at the hotel at the end of their holiday, while 9% said they binned theirs before heading home.

With the Association of British Travel Agents’ (ABTA) latest Holiday Habits report showing more than eight million package holidays were taken by Brits in 2018*, the figures suggest just over two million people left their lilos behind, with more than 700,000 throwing theirs away.

Laid end-to-end, these lilos would stretch for almost 3,300 miles – enough to cross Europe and reach Egypt’s holiday resorts on the Red Sea in the north west corner of Africa.

And according to Holiday Hypermarket’s poll, just over one million holidaymakers (13%) brought their inflatables home, while 4.3 million said that they never buy a lilo on holiday.

Craig Duncan, who led the research for Holiday Hypermarket says: “We were shocked to discover how many lilos are abandoned after holidays. Recent campaigns have raised awareness of the impact billions of bottles, straw and cigarette butts have on marine life, so now it’s time for British holidaymakers to think about the waste of using a lilo for just one holiday.

“During our research we spoke to hotels and they described lilos as an awful problem that is getting worse. When a holidaymaker leaves a lilo behind hotels have little choice but to store them or send them to the local landfill.

“In our survey, we asked holidaymakers if they would use free lilos and inflatables provided by their hotel, but a staggering 57% said no. This means that even if people think their left-behind-lilo will be used by someone else, the chances are it won’t as most holidaymakers prefer to buy their own.”

“British holidaymakers need to change their holiday habits to tackle the inflatable mountain that we risk leaving behind if we don’t change our behavior.

“Our message is don’t buy a new lilo until you’ve checked if there are any you can reuse, and don’t abandon your lilo at the end of your holiday – either give it to another family or bring it home to use again.”

For more information, https://www.holidayhypermarket.co.uk/hype/nearly-3-million-l....

Notes to editors: *ABTA’s Holiday Habits Report 2018 says that 49% of British people took a package holiday in the past 12 months. Current UK population is 66.7m, so 49% is 33m. Based on four people per booking, there were 8.25m package holidays taken over the past 12 months.

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