Tunisia tops list of cheapest winter sun destinations

By SARAH GORDON
Updated: 11:32 EST, 6 January 2011

If you're looking for a winter sun break without breaking the bank, Tunisia offers the best value for money, according to the latest price comparisons.

With hotels in January costing on average £58 per night, Tunisia leads the way with cheap deals, closely followed by Cyprus, where a room costs around £64 per night.

The latest figures from hotel price comparison site trivago.co.uk, show that four out of five of the cheapest winter sun destinations are close to home, making them easier to reach and bringing the cost of flights down.

Bargain: Tunisia has the cheapest hotels for winter sun

Three of the top five are in North Africa, which is proving a big attraction for holidaymakers looking to combine affordability with a taste of the exotic.

While third place for cheap hotels is taken by the Philippines, with rooms averaging £70 per night, rising star Morocco and recent favourite Egypt take fourth and fifth place, with rooms costing £73 and £78.

The holiday spots to avoid if you don't want a run-in with your bank manager are the Maldives, where a room averages a pricey £269 per night and the Seychelles which is not much cheaper at £225.

French Polynesia, celebrity hang-out Barbados and Mauritius also score badly when it comes to affordability, all offering rooms around the £200 mark.

But other holiday destinations which are predicted to do well this year are scoring relatively well.

In Mexico, rooms cost around £95, while Dubai is still offering value for money with hotel prices at £109 and Bahrain is charging £111.

But despite some apparent bargains, one thing all the winter sun destinations have in common is that they have put their prices up.

Hotels for January are more expensive than they were in December, with Barbados - where Simon Cowell, Roman Abramovich and Demi Moore are currently holidaying - hiking prices by as much as 45 per cent.

The only places that have shown a drop in price are the Philippines, by one per cent, Miami Beach, where a room costs £157 in January, as opposed to £168 in December, and Hurghada in Egypt, where rooms cost £64 instead of £70.

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