SINGAPORE, 7 October 2024: Cape Town, South Africa, has regained its position as the best value destination in the UK’s Post Office Travel Money’s annual long haul holiday cost of living barometer for the first time in six years.

Local prices and a weaker South African rand have fallen, decreasing costs for British visitors by 12% since last autumn. This makes Cape Town the best value of 32 resorts and cities surveyed for the 15th annual Long Haul Holiday Report compiled by the UK’s leading foreign exchange provider.

At UKP55.59, the cost of 10 tourist typical staples — including meals and drinks — in Cape Town has fallen to the level last seen when South Africa topped the chart in 2018. 

This comes as British Airways has announced an expansion in flights to Cape Town. Post Office researchers found that the latest barometer basket for Cape Town is over 14% lower than in last year’s best-value destination, Hoi An, Vietnam, which has fallen to third place after seeing prices rise by over 21% to UKP64.80.

Asian destination a better bargain than the Caribbean

The Japanese capital, Tokyo, another destination previously rated best value in the annual survey, has moved past Hoi An into second place after seeing its prices fall by 13.5% to UKP64.07. Another Asian destination, Bali, remains in fourth position with a barometer cost of UKP67.70, down around eight percentage points on last year’s prices. With three of its most popular destinations in the report’s top five, Asian destinations look a better bargain for UK residents than their competitors in the Caribbean Islands.

Jamaica is the only one of six Caribbean destinations surveyed to make the Post Office’s top 10. Montego Bay’s barometer total of UKP93.74 fell 9.4% on 2023 levels, taking the Jamaican resort to 10th place. The other new entrant to the top 10 is Santiago, Chile, which has benefited from a significant year-on-year fall of 12.5%  in the value of the Chilean peso. Local prices have also fallen — one of only six destinations surveyed to do so — resulting in an overall price fall of 14.3% to UKP88.92.

A surge in sterling’s value against most long-haul currencies means that Britons planning winter sun holidays can expect to pay less than a year ago in over half (15 of 29) of the destinations also surveyed a year ago, even though local prices have risen. Barometer costs have fallen year-on-year in eight of the 10 best-value destinations. The biggest top ten fall of 16.4% was in seventh-placed Sharm el-Sheikh (UKP76.47), a result boosted by a 71% drop in the value of the Egyptian pound.

For the first time this year, Post Office Travel Money is featuring four Australian destinations, with the introduction of Sydney, Cairns, and Melbourne to Darwin. However, all four are among the 10 most expensive destinations, with Melbourne (27th, UKP146.76) rating as a better value than the other three Australian cities. At almost UKP165, Sydney (32nd) emerges as the most expensive destination in this year’s survey, not least because a three-course meal with a bottle of wine costs nearly UKP117, which makes the city the priciest place to eat out.

Costa Rica (31st, UKP164.30) and New York (30th, UKP163.51) are almost as expensive as Sydney. Prices in New York are 57% higher than UK visitors can expect to pay for meals, drinks and other tourist items in Orlando, Florida, the other US destination surveyed, 14th in this year’s cost comparison at UKP109.23. However, despite the pound’s continuing recovery against the US dollar, prices are up in both cities: 5%  in New York and 9.8%  in Orlando,

Aside from the price increase of over 21% in Hoi An, Vietnam, visitors can also expect to pay nearly 14% more in Mombasa (£68.53) — due in part to the rising value of the Kenyan shilling. However, the Kenyan resort remains in the best value top five, albeit having fallen from second position last year to fifth place in the 2024 table.

Costs are also down 14.8% to UKP78.14 in Colombo, Sri Lanka, eighth in the chart, and in Delhi, India, where a marginal 1% fall to UKP74.90 means the city retains its sixth place.

The biggest price fall has been in 26th-placed Barbados, where prices in St James are down 18.5% to UKP141.29. Prices have also fallen by almost 11% in Cancun as a result of sterling’s recovery against the Mexican peso. At UKP113.67, this takes Mexico’s top resort four places up the chart to 16th place.

Laura Plunkett, who heads Travel Money at Post Office, which accounts for one in four UK foreign exchange transactions, said: “As ever, our research revealed wide variations in the cost of tourist staples across the 32 destinations we surveyed. This means holidaymakers could save themselves a lot of money and make a big difference to the overall cost of their winter sun trip by doing some basic holiday homework before booking to find out where meals, drinks and other staples are going to cost the least.”

The full results of the 2024 Post Office Travel Money Long Haul Holiday Report can be viewed online at www.postoffice.co.uk/longhaul