Almost one in five holidaymakers find themselves unable to switch off from work, according to a new survey.

Some 17% of Britons admitted they checked their emails throughout their time off, while 13% said they usually spent up to five hours a day working while on holiday.

Researchers at lastminute.com estimate that workers spent an average of 20 hours logged into their emails over the Diamond Jubilee bank holiday weekend.

Almost two-thirds of people said they continued to work until the day before their getaway, while 9% worked on the day of their departure, despite being busy with last-minute preparations such as packing, buying travel money and organising airport transfers.

When asked why they continued to work on holiday, a quarter of respondents said it was because they liked to know what was going on back home.

Another 18% said they simply carried on working automatically when they go abroad, but more than one in 10 (12%) confessed that they did not trust their colleagues to manage without them. Men were more likely to mistrust their co-workers than women, the study found.

But more than a quarter of people (26%) said they had to continue working on holiday because there was no-one to cover for them while they were away.

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Nearly three-quarters of us fret about missing out on office gossip while away on holiday, research has suggested.

The poll from Sunshine found that more than 80% of us worry about missing out on important work developments, suggesting that even when on a beach thousands of miles away, work is never far from our minds.

Fretting over such matters can get in the way of a good time, but people arranging airport transfers can at least be sure their trip to and from the airport is hassle-free.

The poll of 1,652 full-time workers also found that more than 30% work while away, and that a quarter phone or email the office to check if everything is okay.

Nearly a fifth had gone as far as Facebooking workmates, while 3% requested that staff nights out were delayed until they returned from their holiday.

Sunshine co-founder Chris Brown said: “Fear of missing out is indeed a relatively common phenomenon and it’s not difficult to see why it’s quite common among holidaymakers.

“When you are thousands of miles away, it’s easy to start getting anxious about what you could be missing, whether that’s actual work you may need to catch up on when you get back, or just who said what behind whose back in the office.”

Some holidaymakers have had to fork out more than £500 to correct a mistake they have made while booking a trip, a survey has revealed.

LV= travel insurance discovered that 15% had to pay more than £500 to fix their booking blunder, while the average cost of correcting a holiday booking mix-up was £232.

A total of 7% of people who book holidays over the internet have made a mistake while doing so, with the poll revealing that nearly half (48%) book their trips online.

The most common mistakes include booking flights to airports like Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted and Luton on the incorrect day or misspelling their names when filling in booking details. Around a quarter of careless holidaymakers owned up to such errors.

Other mistakes included choosing the wrong departure airport (8%), forgetting to buy a return flight (9%) or buying two flights in the same direction rather than an outbound and return flight (5%).

Many holidaymakers also came a cropper when booking a place to stay for the duration of their holiday, with 17% of holidaymakers who owned up to making booking errors entering the wrong dates, and 8% getting the wrong hotel altogether.

Some 6% admitted that they had booked accommodation which could not house their entourage while 5% managed to book the wrong resort.

Of those who owned up to online booking blunders, 6% were unable to get home from their holiday as planned or were very delayed, while 4% admitted that their mistake had forced them to cancel their holiday altogether.

LV= travel insurance questioned 4,025 adults for the survey, 3,159 of whom had booked a holiday in the last five years.

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Along with topping up that sun tan and securing some time away from work, taking a much needed holiday can also be the perfect excuse for quality time with the family.

A report by the Family Holiday Association and travel firm Thomson showed that 42% of families fail to spend enough time together.

They highlighted how heading to the nearest airport and taking a break away from everyday distractions can make a significant difference to the strength of family bonds.

During the hustle and bustle of a normal working week just over a quarter (27%) of parents admitted that they spend less than an hour a day with their children, while 40% said when they did make time, their children often had other plans.

Results in the Giving Britain a Break survey also pointed out that 49% of children between the ages of eight and 12 felt that they were missing out on quality time with their fathers.

David Burling, UK and Ireland managing director of Thomson’s parent company Tui, said: “We believe everybody needs quality time together. For many people, the easiest way to secure that time is to go on holiday, to give ourselves the chance to reflect on what’s really important and valuable.”

Meanwhile an all-party parliamentary report outlined how a greater number of families going on holidays together would provide a £5 billion boost for tourism.

Findings in the report have even called for the Government to make finding quality time away from home a regular reality for every family in the UK.

John McDonald, director of the Family Holiday Association, said: “We fully support the Parliamentary Group’s call for greater recognition of the advantages of more families getting a break.

“This would not only deliver real benefits for those families but provide a boost to the British tourism economy too.”

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Holidays, especially ones to idyllic beach locations, are supposed to be joyous occasions where the memories made are only of the happy variety.

However, a survey by travel agent Sunshine has revealed that holidaymakers do worry about many things that could go wrong while on an overseas break.

These holiday fears, according to 53% of those polled, have ruined at least one of their trips.

The most ‘popular’ holiday fears people experience is that they will not get a decent tan during their break, followed closely by losing their passport and their luggage.

Many, according to the poll, also worried about missing a flight. This can easily be avoided by arriving at the airport several hours before the departure time, while taking a bus to the airport can also help to make holiday travel as stress-free as possible.

Other travellers said they were most concerned about staying in accommodation that they did not deem to be good enough.

Other unfavourable occurrences that played on the mind of holidaymakers include bad weather, not having enough money to spend while on holiday and not liking the resort.

Last, but by no means least, holidaymakers feared getting ill or getting burnt by the sun.

Sunshine questioned a total of 1,672 people for the survey.

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Many people deemed a holiday to be an essential purchase last year, according to a survey.

The figures from LV= found that the average household spent £3,181 on holidays and weekend breaks last year, suggesting that plenty of people will have found their way to London Stansted Airport via airport transfers in 2010.

Holidays were just one of a list of essentials, which also included take-aways and haircuts, according to the research carried out by the Centre for Economics and Business Research (Cebr) among more than 2,000 people.

The past 12 months saw some £5,850 spent on such items in the average household. This included £754 on eating out; £29 on trips to the cinema; and £456 on take aways.

Some 77% of people polled paid for these items by cutting back in other areas, such as dropping a brand in the supermarket, taking sandwiches to work and shunning the office vending machine for a good old-fashioned flask of tea or coffee.

Cebr carried out the research using Office for National Statistics figures, with people racking up an annual cost of £75 on their daily coffee shop fix; £306 on premium food and £297 on TV subscriptions. Culture vultures also spent £105 on visits to museums and galleries and suchlike.

Holidaymakers heading abroad this summer from certain UK airports may find using tablet computers such as iPads abroad could be up to 1,000 times more expensive than in Britain. 

Consumer group Which? has revealed the potentially crippling costs, which could interest people looking to go on holiday from Heathrow, or Stansted airports this Easter. 

The research shows that while some travellers might think they have been thrifty by using airport transfers, they could end up spending over and above anyway by checking the internet or making calls home. 

In Britain a gigabyte of data can cost as little as £7.50 a month for people who like to check emails, watch videos or download music on a tablet. 

But the study has shown that similar usage while travelling abroad could end up costing several thousand pounds.

It would take a considerable amount of hours watching video online to run up such astronomical charges – but simply using GPS to get around, browsing the internet, or checking emails could lead to a bill of several hundred pounds.

Also, smartphone and tablet users could find their devices racking up big bills without them knowing as the gadgets access the internet to conduct automatic updates.

Although data charges are limited to about £40 in the EU due to an automatic bill cut-off required by EC regulation, and some operators have caps for use further afield, others do not have a limit on how big a bill a customer can rack up.

Which? found that using a mobile phone to make and receive calls, send texts and browse the web while abroad can be extremely costly too.

Unlike within the UK, mobile users must pay to receive calls as well as to make them.

Prices are capped in the EU, but calls made elsewhere can be up to 10 times more expensive and texts can be four times more expensive.

Copyright © Press Association 2011