Which? Travel at 50 – the story of the UK's longest running travel magazine

Can you recommend a holiday in the same way you can a washing machine? 50 years ago a small team of Which? journalists and researchers set about finding out as they published the first issue of what was then called Holiday Which? – now the UK’s oldest travel magazine. 

In the 70s, the arrival of the Jumbo jet and cut-price hotels on the Costas saw millions of Britons able to take their first trip abroad. Holiday Which? launched with the promise to provide information you could trust about destinations, hotels and tour operators. And from the outset it went to extraordinary lengths to provide in-depth, accurate recommendations. 

Unlike all other national UK travel magazines and newspaper travel sections Which? Travel never accepts freebies – no free flights, no free hotels, no free meals, no free anything. That’s why we’re the most trusted voice in travel. Find out more about a Which? Travel subscription 

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CEO names and numbers – and pedalos

'I'd be at Spanish beach hotels, early on a January morning, lifting up wet tarpaulin to see if I could tick the box in our questionnaire for pedalos.’ I’m talking to Sue Leggate, who edited Holiday Which? shortly after its launch in 1974, about her memories of the comprehensive research the magazine often went to.

Back in the 70s, Sue and her researchers would inspect hundreds of hotels for a single destination report. Often armed with nothing more than a letter from the national tourism board, they’d arrive unannounced at the hotel manager’s office and ask to be shown the facilities. ‘It wasn't just missing pedalos they were looking for,' says Sue. 'The questionnaire detailed if the hotel had a safe swimming pool, working lifts and dozens of other things.' 

Holiday Which? researchers might make two or three trips to a destination to fact-check each other’s information. Members also got involved. ‘We had a database of reader names and addresses, and we would go and visit them in countries to get their recommendations,’ Sue tells me. She recalls one particularly memorable meeting with a Bajan family in Barbados. ‘The husband had studied at LSE (London School of Economics and Political Science) and remained a subscriber when they returned home. I travelled to their house just after Christmas, and they served us seemingly endless rum-soaked fruit cake.' 

It was a decade when millions could finally afford to go abroad, but there was no Google, guidebooks or ‘really any reliable source of information,’ Sue explains. ‘Beyond the brochure people booked blind, and often ended up in some terrible hotels and difficult circumstances.’

Our ethos, Sue says, was to ‘empower holidaymakers’ and make Holiday Which? ‘an independent source of accurate information you could trust’. As early as 1974, the magazine published tour operator and airline ratings so readers could choose better providers. Both our airline survey and holiday companies survey continue to this day, with thousands of customers having their say. ‘We were fearless in our praise and criticism,’ Sue says. In 1975, after several tour operators had sent people on dodgy holidays or gone bust – leaving customers holding the bill – the magazine published the names and phone numbers of their managing directors. 

Dangerous hotels and saving lives

Patricia Yates edited the magazine nearly 15 years after Sue, but, when we meet, her first recollection of Holiday Which? is also about fearlessly ‘telling the truth in travel’.

She remembers how they once dispatched researchers with recording equipment on an Airtours holiday to ‘film the brochure’. Airtours, then, was one of the UK's largest holiday operators, run by one of the country’s richest men. It was also regularly rated by readers as one of the worst holiday companies. The researchers detailed beachfront hotels not on the beach, and selective descriptions that forgot to mention busy roads or building sites. It was so compelling that Holiday Which? ended up at the European Court, to argue against Airtours’ takeover of First Choice. 

Indeed, the Monopolies and Mergers Commission must have dreaded its monthly phone call from Holiday Which?. We regularly referred takeovers of smaller, well-rated companies by conglomerates as harmful to consumer interest. Patricia explains why: ‘We were passionate about free enterprise; competition driving better quality and price.’ 

From its outset the magazine played a crucial role in standing up for consumers, and much of the 90s was spent reporting on safety. Many holidaymakers were injured or died abroad due to carbon monoxide or food poisoning. In response, the magazine sent out heating engineers and environmental health inspectors. One report found 17 of 19 Mallorca hotels had unacceptable levels of bacteria in food – and E. coli at half of them. 

The magazine hounded hotels to make improvements, but it was its successful lobbying for the introduction of the Package Travel Regulations (PTRs) that really changed things. As Patricia explains, up until then ‘you paid all your money upfront and if something went wrong, good luck to you. Holidays carried huge risk.’ The PTRs shifted the responsibility on to UK tour operators, ensuring they took steps to certify hotels they used were safe. It also protected consumers financially, against everything from cancellations and post-contract price hikes to fictional promises in brochures. 

By the 2010s we got a new name – as travel habits changed. Budget airlines made more frequent holidays affordable, while online travel websites saw more readers booking themselves. Lorna Cowan, editor at the time, tells me how readers felt the name Which? Travel ‘reflected a more independent way of travelling rather than just organised holidays’. 

Our recommendations expanded, too. Readers were called on to rate everything from cruises and car hire to waterproof jackets and walking socks. This saw the introduction of our Which? Recommended Provider (WRP) endorsement badge which, as Lorna describes it, ‘recognised the very best travel service providers’. Only around 10% of the hundreds of companies we review currently earn the endorsement. 

Why Which? Travel is still essential 

Holiday Which? was launched in 1974 because of a lack of trusted information for holidaymakers. We now live in an information age, but in a way things are worse. Much of what we read about travel is repurposed from holiday company press releases, while reviews are bought and biased – or just outright fakes. So it’s perhaps unsurprising that the original mission of the magazine remains. 

We’re still independent – the only UK travel publication that doesn’t take freebies – and we strive for accuracy, employing scientists, statisticians and lawyers. We’re still fearless, regularly challenging companies that let consumers down – whether it’s in these pages, in court or in parliament – no matter how big they are or how threatening their legal letters. It’s readers that make all of this happen. Whether you lend your voice to our surveys, speak up as a case study or simply help fund our campaigning work through your subscription, together, we’ve made holidays better for everyone in this country.

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