Music fans are being forced overseas as the cost of tickets for festivals in the UK continues to rise, a poll by Watchmywallet.co.uk shows.

The money-saving website found almost two in three festival-goers would contemplate going to an event in Europe rather than one on home soil.
Over half of Britons heading abroad for a festival are attracted by the relatively cheap cost, while one in four are influenced by the weather. More than a third of people surveyed revealed they get to fewer festivals now than they did when they were younger.

People keen to sample a different kind of atmosphere at an affordable cost could have picked up an early-bird ticket for a weekend at Poland’s Open’er Festival for only £77, with the standard price £112.
Super-early bird tickets for Soundwave in Croatia would set a music fan back just £65.

Many festival locations are easily accessible from UK airports such as Stansted, Gatwick and Luton.
“Many of the music fans we polled admitted that they now look at European festivals as a real alternative to UK events,” said Sean O’Meara, of Watch My Wallet.
“With cheap airfares and lower prices for accommodation and food in many European countries, it’s possible to enjoy a festival experience abroad with a little sightseeing thrown in, all for less than the cost of going to Reading Festival.”

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Families planning holidays to Spain and Portugal may find their money goes up to 20% further this year, according to latest figures from some of Europe’s most popular resorts.
This year’s Post Office Holiday Costs Barometer shows that prices have fallen sharply in many resorts, with prices down by up to 20% in Spain and almost 15% in the Algarve.
Portugal was the cheapest destination in Europe, thanks to cheap food and drink prices, while neighbouring Spain was in second place.

The research involved adding up the total for 10 holiday items across all destinations. In the Algarve they cost £46.34 – just 16p less than in Torremolinos on the Costa del Sol and only 80p cheaper than in Javea, on the Costa Blanca.

Prices in the Costas have fallen year on year – down 19% in the Costa del Sol and down 20% in the Costa Blanca.
A 3.4% rise in resort prices at fourth-placed Sunny Beach, Bulgaria, saw the 10 items cost £47.32, still less than a pound cheaper than then cheapest resort – Albufeira in the Algarve.
Such was the fierce competition to attract UK holidaymakers to the top four cheapest resorts, the fifth placed destination, Majorca, was almost £9 more expensive (£55.46).
Here prices have fallen 8.8% in a year, while they have gone down about 6% in Corfu, Greece (£64.45). This is equal to about a 1.7% fall in price once the Sterling to Euro exchange rate has been factored in.
Many of the resorts are easily accessible from UK airports such as Stanstead, Gatwick and Luton.

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As the cold weather lingers, around 1.7 million Britons will jet off this Easter in search of sunnier climes.

One of the coldest March months on record has prompted many people to snap up last-minute offers, according to the Association of British Travel Agents (ABTA).
Destinations such as the Canary Islands, Majorca, Tunisia, Egypt and Turkey are proving popular with getaway Brits, while Paris, Dublin, Amsterdam, Rome and New York top the city breaks chart.
France and Austria, meanwhile, are the most popular ski-destination countries.

A total of 600,000 departures are expected from Heathrow airport over the Easter period, 110,000 from Manchester, 110,000 from Stansted and 55,000 from Luton.
Gatwick is preparing itself for 214,000 departures, with Barcelona, Geneva and the southern Spanish city of Malaga listed as its top destinations.

In addition, airports across Scotland will see more than 100,000 departures up until April 2.
“After two wet summers and no end in sight to the winter, many Brits are desperate for some sunshine,” said ABTA chief executive Mark Tanzer.
“We’ve seen a surge in last minute bookings to warm destinations and ski lovers are also in for a treat with some of the best snow conditions seen for years.”

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Valentine’s Day lovers appear to be tiring of the traditional romantic holiday hotspots, a new poll has revealed.

Venice, Rome and Paris all failed to feature in a table of the top 10 Valentine destinations, according to a survey by Gatwick airport.
Some UK couples are choosing to forgo the rom-com staples of Europe’s more romantic cities and spend the day closer to home, with Edinburgh, Belfast and Dublin all making the cut.
Geneva is still the number one Valentine destination for couples flying from Gatwick, but this year Edinburgh comes in third, Belfast seventh and Dublin eighth.

Other cities that featured in the top 10 include Barcelona, Grenoble in France and Dubai in the Middle East, famed for its shopping and its luxury resorts.
This year’s Valentine’s week is set to the busiest yet at Gatwick, with almost half a million (476,000) passengers expected to pass through its terminals. With the volumes of traffic predicted, it may be wise to book seats on an airport transfer service in order to guarantee arriving at the airport on time.

“As usual, European mini break destinations are proving popular but it’s interesting to see less traditional cities, like Belfast, hitting the spot for Valentine’s breaks this year,” Gatwick terminals operations chief Nick Henderson said.

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Seafood lovers will be heading from far and wide to West India this weekend as the Goa tourism seafood festival takes centre stage.

The event near the Caranzalem beach (NIWS grounds) offers a range of delicacies at over 75 different food stalls and opens just a day before the Goa Carnival begins in Panaji.
There are also three outstation food stalls providing food from Jammu and Kashmir, Gujarat and Arunachal Pradesh for people to sample, and there will be no lack of entertainment during the course of the five days either.
Former member of the girl-band Viva, Anushka Manchanda, will sing on the opening day of the festival. She will be followed by the likes of Remo Fernandes, Sonia Shirsat, Lorna, Farhan Akhtar and his band and the rock bands Parikrama and Agnee.

Wendell Rodricks will also host a fashion show and, after two preliminary cooking contests in North and South Goa, celebrity chef Kunal Vijaykar will hold a final ‘cookfest’ before crowning the Chef de Goa on Sunday.
More than 50 floats were confirmed well in advance for the carnival and organisers are expecting in the region of 100 in total, with prizes of Rs 5,000 to Rs 50,000 to be handed out to the best ones by the tourism department.
And neither the Goa tourism seafood festival nor the Goa Carnival are out of reach for food lovers in the UK as flights to the state are readily available from the likes of London Heathrow and Gatwick, usually via Mumbai or Delhi.

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Asia and the Pacific could be the places to head for globetrotters still mulling over where to go first as they head to Heathrow, Stansted or Gatwick on bus or coach.

For research by the United National World Travel Organisation (UNWTO) has found those regions are the world’s most “open” for tourists when it comes to having to have a visa to visit. And the organisation says that could have knock-on benefits for those regions’ economic growth.

Only a fifth of world travellers need a special visa to enter countries in Asia and the Pacific, UNWTO found, with 20% of the world’s population not requiring a visa to visit countries in Asia. A further fifth can get a visa when they arrive and another 8% are able to get one online before setting off on their travels.

Although 21% of the world’s population do not need a visa to visit destinations in Europe, a lot fewer can get one on arrival or in advance online, making it the “least open” to tourists, the research found.
Taleb Rifai, UNWTO’s secretary general, said tourists could be put off visiting some countries or regions by nations imposing strict entry requirements.
He added: “An overall restrictive visa policy means lost opportunities for economic growth and jobs, which tourism could bring to destinations.”

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The Bulgarian tourism board will launch a new initiative in September in a bid to tempt twice as many visitors to the country in the next 10 to 15 years.

Deputy minister of economy, energy and tourism, Ivo Marinov, hopes ‘a discovery to share’ will encourage 25 per cent growth between now and 2018.
Past surveys conducted by the tourism board showed nine in 10 people who visit Bulgaria enjoy their stay, which will hearten tourist chiefs as they aim to attract more holidaymakers.

Tourists flock to attractions like the Alexander Nevski Church in Sofia, the Roman Theatre in Plovdiv and the Sea Garden in Varna.
The St Alexander Nevsky Cathedral is among the largest Eastern Orthodox cathedrals in the world and acts as one of the capital’s symbols and major tourist attractions.
Philippopolis is a historical building in the city centre of Plovdiv that was constructed during the reign of Emperor Trajan between 98 and 117 AD.

Bulgaria also boasts beautiful sandy beaches along the Black Sea coast and affordable ski resorts, which encourage beginners to hit the slopes without spending over the odds.
British holidaymakers keen to sample what Bulgaria has to offer can fly to the eastern European nation from major UK airports such as Heathrow and Gatwick.

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Brazil certainly knows how to throw a samba-fuelled party – it is one of the reasons why we are all excited about the next World Cup and Olympic Games being in Rio.
But while those events are a little while away yet, one of the city’s most luxurious and exotic hotels is laying on a big celebration of its own.

The legendary Copacabana Palace, which has been graced by a host of famous faces such as Marilyn Monroe and Nelson Mandela, has just entered its 90th year.
To mark the occasion, work was completed late last year on renovations, which cost a total of 20 million US dollars.
If following in the footsteps of some of the world’s biggest stars wasn’t enough to inspire people to get down to their nearest airport and fly over for a stay at the Copacabana Palace, the contemporary makeover might be.

As part of the overhaul, guests can expect to enjoy redesigned rooms, restructured bathrooms and improvements to the renowned Cipriani Restaurant.
Tourists have flown in from near and far to enjoy the delights on offer at the Cipriani, but as part of the changes they will be able to sample the menu straight from the kitchen as a result of the new ‘table du chef’ option.

Londoners flying in from Stansted, Luton, Heathrow or Gatwick will also be blown away by the legendary Copacabana beach setting – it’s so good they made a song about it.
The glorious white sandy beach is something we can only dream of in this country – and it’s about as far away from the hustle and bustle of the capital’s streets as you can get.
However, sceneries to savour are not simply confined to the outdoors, after the hotel lobby’s original ceiling was discovered during the renovation work.
It has been fully restored to its original splendour to provide yet another hallmark of history in what is a massive year for the hotel.

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Close to four million Britons will travel overseas during the holidays, leaving those who opt to stay home coping with more of a wet Christmas than a white one.

A good number of travellers going abroad plan to make the best of this year’s abundant snowfall on ski slopes.
People looking for sunshine in the winter are heading to the Canary Islands, Cuba, Mexico and Tunisia.

Meanwhile, back in the UK, there is an expectation that roads will be jammed on Friday, even though roadworks on several important routes have been finished or will be stopped during the holidays.
Weather reports are predicting widespread and heavy rainfall for most of the coming days, while temperatures will be much higher than normal, reaching up to 14C (57F) on Sunday in southern England.

On Friday Heathrow is anticipating its peak holiday travel day, as 123,000 travellers are due to take off from the airport in west London.
An additional 114,000 passengers are expected to depart on Sunday and 88,000 will be taking off on Christmas Eve.

Between Friday and January 3, Gatwick airport is expecting to handle a total of 700,000 departures, while Manchester will see 320,000 depart, Stansted another 300,000, Luton will see 125,000, Birmingham will handle 116,000 and Glasgow will see 75,000 departures.

Abta travel group reported that the favourite international destinations for new year celebrations were Paris, Reykjavik, Rome, Dublin and New York.

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Tourists will soon get a better view of Egypt’s ancient artefacts thanks to development at Cairo’s famous museum.
The Egyptian Museum will undergo a three-phase development project to enhance its visitor experience.

Museum Director Salwa Abdel-Rahman said Hall 32 and 37 will both be revamped as part of the first phase.
Those fascinated by ancient Egyptian culture will now be able to see some of the museum’s best pieces collated together in the display.
Hall 32 houses Old Kingdom artefacts unearthed at the Saqqara Necropolis, while 37 displays funerary collection of Queen Hetepheres, mother of King Khufu, the builder of Egypt’s Great Pyramid.

The Association of Lovers of the Egyptian Museum is financing the first phase of the project.
The second phase will see the museum’s long windows changed and its dome thoroughly cleaned.
New lighting, which will not affect the artefacts, has already been installed.

Minister of State for Antiquities Mohamed Ibrahim has given the project the go-ahead.
He told Ahram Online that the three projects are due to be completed in 2015.
Those hoping to see the revamped displays should check online for the best rates from Stansted, Luton and other airports across the UK.

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