FOR YEARS it was either Prague, Newcastle or – if you were feeling flush – a long weekend in Las Vegas.
However, since lockdown, stags and hens are increasingly flocking to smaller British towns and cities before tying the knot.
Despite not necessarily being known as party meccas, bookings to the likes of Aberdeen and Sheffield have exploded since 2019.
One “leftfield” location, the leafy North Yorkshire town of Harrogate, has seen a 200 per cent rise in stag and hen weekends since the Covid pandemic.
According to the boss of Britain’s biggest stag and hen party provider, smaller cities and towns are benefiting from a dip in demand for some of the industry’s more established destinations.
“Lockdown opened a lot of people’s eyes to the joys of Britain. Staycations really made us appreciate that there’s more to the UK than London and few other big cities,” said Matt Mavir, Managing Director of Last Night of Freedom.
“Since the pandemic, we’ve had fewer groups heading to traditional hotspots like Munich and Ibiza. However, that’s been more than balanced out by a huge upswing in demand for the likes of Cambridge and Southampton.
“A few years ago, these towns and cities weren’t on any stag or hen’s radar, yet last year, we took more bookings for the likes or Torquay and Galway than we did for Las Vegas – that’s staggering.”
Industry data shows that many of the traditional big hitters still reign supreme with stags and hens. End-of-year figures show Newcastle was Europe’s top stag party destination, with Liverpool favoured by brides-to-be.
In the EU, Amsterdam, Dublin, and Benidorm all performed strongly last year as the travel sector found its feet again after two years of yo-yoing restrictions.
However, with demand down across parts of Europe, due to both the cost-of-living crisis and the war in Ukraine, destinations like Birmingham and Cardiff emerged as viable alternatives.
And compared to 2019, the final year before those devastating pandemic restrictions, stag and hen bookings shot up in well over half a dozen destinations.
They include:
- Aberdeen – Up 50 per cent
- Birmingham – Up 41 per cent
- Cambridge – Up 50 percent
- Galway – Up 60 per cent
- Sheffield – Up 25 per cent
- Southampton – Up 57 per cent
- Harrogate – Up 200 per cent
- Cardiff – 14 per cent
Matt added: “The growth of these quirkier destinations is fantastic for stags and hens as they feel like they have so much more choice.
“But it also provides a welcome shot in the arm for their hospitality and tourism sectors.”
