Gen Z Has Quietly Fallen Back in Love With the Family Holiday – and Grandma Is Picking Up the Tab
GLOUCESTERSHIRE, UK – June 26, 2026 – The British family holiday has been quietly reinvented – not by airlines or apps, but by grandparents, their cash-strapped adult children, and a generation of twenty-somethings who have decided that a week in the Cotswolds beats a weekend in Magaluf.
Multi-generational travel, where grandparents, parents and grandchildren share a single property, is now one of the fastest-growing categories in UK domestic tourism. UK searches for multi-generational holidays rose 142% between 2021–22 and 2024–25, according to Google data analysis by Journeyscape, with one operator reporting a 67% year-on-year surge in bookings for groups of six or more. Accommodation sleeping eight or more people was up over 25% in 2025 bookings, according to holidaycottages.co.uk.
The trend is being driven by a demographic few predicted: Generation Z. A survey by holidaycottages.co.uk found 70% of Gen Z now say they would prefer to holiday with family over friends, a striking inversion of the party-holiday stereotype. Some 58% cite quality time with loved ones as their primary motivation, and 41% report feeling meaningfully more connected to family after a multi-generational trip.
Equally significant is who is footing the bill. Research by Travelzoo found that over 40% of multi-generational holidays are booked by grandparents, with 34% of those grandparents paying for the entire group, more than double the 13% of parents who cover all costs. With younger households squeezed by rents and the cost of living, the bank of mum and dad has extended its remit to annual holidays.
For group accommodation Gloucestershire specialist Gloucestershire Group Cottages, the timing is well-placed. The company offers exclusive-use properties across the county, from market-town escapes near Cirencester to Forest of Dean retreats at Lydney, lakeside stays at Cotswold Water Park and classic Cotswold countryside at Little Rissington, a range designed to suit every generation at once.
“What we’re seeing isn’t a passing trend, it’s a fundamental shift in how British families want to spend time together. A private cottage removes every friction point that ruins a hotel stay with a big group: the dinner reservation that doesn’t fit fourteen, the corridors at midnight, the rooms spread across three different floors. Everyone has their own space, but the whole family gathers around one table. That’s genuinely hard to replicate anywhere else, and Gloucestershire, with the Cotswolds, the Forest of Dean and Cotswold Water Park on the doorstep, gives every generation something to look forward to.” – Spokesperson, Gloucestershire Group Cottages
The accommodation data supports the shift. Half of families planning multi-generational trips now favour self-catering cottages over hotels, citing private gardens, large shared kitchens, games rooms and flexible mealtimes as decisive factors. Properties sleeping six or more are showing higher occupancy resilience than smaller units across rural regions.
Skyscanner named multi-generational family memory-making one of its headline travel trends for 2026. With 30–40% of UK staycationers already travelling as extended family or large groups, the Gloucestershire countryside, equidistant between Birmingham, Bristol and London, sits at the centre of a market only growing.
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Company Name: Gloucestershire Group Cottages
Contact Person: Tom Armstrong
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Country: United Kingdom
Website: https://www.gloucestershiregroupcottages.co.uk/
