Budget teams with Instagrammers to create social travel guides

 

London, June 2015: Budget Car Rental research reveals that only 4% of people in the United Kingdom are lucky enough to have one great weekend every month. In an effort to increase the number of memorable weekends, the company challenged 28 talented Instagramers across Europe to create a series of inspirational social travel guides with less than £162, the average amount needed to have a great weekend.

 

Instagramers from the UK, Spain, Portugal, France, the Netherlands, Germany and Italy took part in the #GreatWeekend challenge earlier this year – resulting in a total of seven social travel guides being created on Instagram. Within just 48 hours, over 200 photos were shared by the teams using the hashtag #GreatWeekend, and over 9 locations had been visited across the seven countries. The images have already been viewed, liked and shared by nearly 1.5 million people across Europe.

 

Samantha Lee, Head of UK Marketing and Intermediaries, Budget UK commented:

 

“We teamed up with some very talented Instagramers who love to explore and capture the amazing things they experience, to help show some of the greatest places to visit across Europe. We want to open up the world and inspire people to have more great weekends by showing spontaneous adventures for those on a budget.” 

 

The team from the UK were: Tun Shin Chang (@tschang), Samee Lapham (@samsette), Jennifer Wiersma (@jenniferelizabeth_) and Kim Leuenberger (@kim.ou) and they chose to explore the great outdoors basing themselves in The Cotswolds. Together, they captured 15 stunning pictures, including long walks down country lanes, pretty thatched-roofed cottages and Arlington Row, which features on the first page of the British Passport.

 

“We looked into the most common reasons why people find it difficult to have more great weekends, and found being stuck in a routine, lack of planning and not having enough time were key barriers.”

 

When respondents were asked “When was the last time you had completely new experience during a weekend,” only 17% of people said it was in the last month. The top ten things that stop Brits from having more great weekends throughout the year are: not having enough money (51%), not enough time (25%), work (20%), being stuck in a routine (20%), having no friends or friends not being available (16%), laziness (15%), lack of planning (15%), needing to look after children (9%), being in a relationship (6%) and worrying about missing out on something else if you plan too far in advance (5%).

 

“Our ambition is for these travel guides to become an ever-growing source of great weekend inspiration. We wanted to show what is possible without a lot of pre-planning or needing to break the bank.”

 

Budget will be expanding the social travel guide series to feature more destinations later in the year, so watch this space and follow #GreatWeekend on Instagram. To see the stunning pictures captured by the UK team, search for #GreatWeekend and BudgetUK on Instagram.

 

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Notes to Editors:

About Budget:

Budget Car Rental is one of the world’s best-known car rental brands with approximately 3,500 locations in more than 120 countries. Budget is an industry leader in providing vehicle rental services to value-conscious travelers and also operates one of the largest local and one-way truck rental businesses in the United States, through a network of approximately 1,550 locations. Budget is owned by Avis Budget Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:CAR), which operates and licenses the brand throughout the world. For further information, visit www.budget.com.

 

Additional Information:

For more information, please contact the Budget Press Office on 0844 826 8347 or budgetpressoffice@webershandwick.com