Football Travel

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Football at the highest level has been enjoying massive revenues in recent years. On a domestic level the Premiership is going from strength to strength, but it is the Champions League that boasts probably the most lucrative prize, financially, in world football. The Champions League has been a huge success, and the big clubs are becoming accustomed to taking thousands of fans with them when they go to play foreign teams.

On the 10th December Arsenal will go to play FC Porto of Portugal, and already there will be thousands of fans preparing to make the journey. In fact, as soon as the draw was announced almost all of the cheap flights to Portugal in that week will have been snapped up by Gunners fans eager to get down and see the match. Likewise, every hotel, cheap or not, anywhere near the centre of Porto will have been booked out.

Football fans are merely following a trend that has been growing in recent years. Low cost airlines offer flights from all UK airports to literally hundreds of locations, and offer the opportunity for weekend breaks from our own shores to just about anywhere in Europe. Gone, it seems, are the days of people taking weekend breaks on our own coastline – why do that when it is possible to get a cheap flight and a cheaper hotel on a Mediterranean beach?

Many are asking, however, whether cheap flights will continue to be an option as the credit crunch bites and takes a toll on the costs incurred by airlines. For the moment the government has shown no sign of putting further taxes on cheap air travel, and the benefits to the tourist trade are so profound it’s hard to see this happening. If fuel prices continue to rise, inevitably some of that cost will be passed along to the customer, but for the moment the cheap holiday is still very much an option.

Cheap hotels are a much more certain proposition, there have been hostels and hotels for as long as anyone can possibly remember, and this will inevitably continue. There is a certain stigma attached with the idea of a hostel that is largely undeserved, and if you are operating on a tight budget and just want to get away somewhere, a hostel should not be entirely discounted.

The best place to look for accommodation is often on the internet, where peer reviewers can give you a fairly good idea of the quality of any place you may wish to stay. If you are looking for a good cheap hotels website, places like lastminute.com are recommended, and for cheap flights, whilst many might look to the traditional big two of cheap air travel, companies like Monarch may just offer better value for your hard-earned cash.