Holidays and restaurants feel too expensive, and the French are going anyway: they protect the trip and make their trade-offs around it. For the first wave of the Nabel Travel & Dining Tracker, we interviewed 263 people who choose their household’s holidays, all of them in a voice interview with the Nabel agent.
TRACKER
Keep the Trip, Cut the Extras Hospitality & Travel · France
Sept 2026 fieldwork · 263 respondents · 20 min median interview
Too expensive, and going anyway.
81%
find holidays too expensive, yet 91% plan to go away again in the next twelve months, including 90% of those who find prices too high.
73%
gave up nothing on their last trip. The trade-off comes earlier: 47% stayed in a private rental this year, for the space, the freedom and a kitchen.
68%
find restaurant prices too high, yet 79% were happy with their last meal. What annoys them is the price of drinks, and bread and water they have to ask for.
49%
say AI in travel concerns them, against 87% for rising prices. They will let it search and compare, not book or pay for them.
I’d been upgraded, and they asked me to post only positive reviews online. […] At first I did, and then, once I was back home, I took it down.
Woman, 35–54, back from a campsite holiday, talking to the Nabel agent · quote translated from French, audio shortened
Methodology
Mainland France · 11–17 Sept 2026
263
respondents who had a paid night away in the past year, ate out in the past three months and choose their household’s holidays
183
complete voice interviews with the Nabel agent, plus 80 partial ones kept question by question
20 min
median length of a complete interview
6 days
of fieldwork.
What they protect, what they cut, and who they trust
The full report goes further. 29 pages, in French:
- 6 findings on holiday budgets, accommodation, booking, restaurants and AI
- Three travellers’ stories, and their own words transcribed word for word
- 3 opportunities for hotels, booking platforms and restaurants
- The interview guide and the full methodology