This time last year in the Search Travel Online offices, we were looking at our calendars and predicting a sales lull around the time of June and July 2008. Why? Because of the European Championship in Switzerland and Austria. It was a foregone conclusion that England would take their rightful place amongst the final 16 teams – after all, England had an easy looking group with the likes of Russia, Croatia and Israel. It would take a major slip up for England not to make the finals, and as we currently don’t sell holidays to Switzerland or Austria we expected little business with everyone staying home and helping pub landlords around the country make a tidy profit.

Fast forward 12 months, and the picture has turned on its head. England faltered in their group, failing to make the impression they should have done and being all but out in November, relying on Israel to beat Russia to give them a chance of qualifying. Israel did the impossible and beat Russia, only for England to throw it away by losing to Croatia. This led to Steve McClaren being sacked, and England once again looking for a new manager. Alongside this, Scotland just lost out to giants Italy and France in their group, despite beating the latter twice, Wales failed to battle their way out of their group and Northern Ireland didn’t quite have the quality in the end, despite breaking the record for goals scored by a single player – David Healy with 13.

So, this leaves none of the UK’s football fans with any strong commitments come June next year, so what’s the alternative to bitterly watching the other nations compete in the European Championship? Well, one option we’ve seen selling well in the office is cheap holidays to Tenerife. A Tenerife holiday package has everything you could hope for when looking to escape England – while we were suffering floods this year, Tenerife holiday makers were enjoying the glorious sunshine, and while nobody expects a repeat of the unusual weather that dogged Britain last year, it’s nice to go somewhere where sunshine and good times are guaranteed!

In fact, in many ways a cheap holiday to Tenerife highlights the futility of watching the big summer sporting event – just take a look at the following contrasts:

1) European Championships: Annoying mascots and endless opening ceremony "entertainment"

The over-the-top opening ceremonies at international football tournaments are uniformly dull, and the irritating country mascots don’t help to brighten proceedings, despite their shamelessly attention seeking antics.

Tenerife: Real wildlife and plentiful entertainment

Why bother with men in animal suits, when you can see real exotic animals’ fascinating behaviour instead? Loco Park, Tenerife, has the biggest dolphin habitat in Europe, along with a huge aquarium that houses over 20,000 fish and marine animals which can be seen through an underwater tunnel. Elsewhere, the park has gorillas, tigers and jaguars ensuring an entertaining day out for wildlife lovers.

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