I love a good travel programme and there are plenty to watch at the moment. You can guarantee you know where I will be on a Wednesday evening, tuned in to ‘Race Across the World’ or ‘Cruising with Susan’ on a Friday.

I was super excited last week to learn that Jet2holidays has teamed up with ITV to take stars from Coronation Street, I’m A Celebrity…, The Chase and Loose Women? away on an award-winning Jet2holiday, for a brand-new prime time series launching later this year called The Great Escapers. Produced by South Shore and co-funded by Jet2holidays, the 4x60 minute travelogue series will see three famous faces from each show jet off to Rhodes, Spain, Portugal and Malta on a Jet2 holiday together.

In each episode the stars will compete to give their colleagues the best holiday experience they can, supported by a Jet2holidays Customer Helper. The celebrities will each take turns to decide the day’s itinerary. Jet2holidays has also cast one of itsaward-winning Overseas Customer Helpers to help guide the celebrities with their activity choices and create the perfect holiday experience throughout. However, the stars are in competition and what screams fun for one, might not be quite to the same tastes for the rest of the group. At the end of the trip, the three celebrities must vote for who put together the most memorable day and one of them will be crowned The Greatest Escaper.

The series is being filmed this Spring and Summer in Albufeira, Tossa de Mar, Malta and Rhodes, and so if you are holidaying in any of these locations this year don’t be surprised to see ITV film crews out and about whilst ‘on location’.

Rhodes Harbour, likely to be seen on The Great Escapers

placeholder image — Rhodes Harbour, likely to be seen on The Great Escapers

The series will air on ITV1, ITVX, STV and STV Player later this year and I literally can’t wait.

Gavin Forth, Chief Customer Officer at Jet2holidays said: “We are very excited to work with ITV and their exciting talent on this brand-new series. The Great Escapers is a fantastic way to show off all the award-winning qualities that make a Jet2holidays so memorable, and we will be supporting the series with a range of activities and competitions to get viewers involved.”

Katie Rawcliffe, Director of Entertainment & Daytime ITV said: “We’ve got some of ITV’s best-known faces flying out to the most gorgeous destinations in this brand-new series. We can’t wait to see the cast of Corrie, I’m A Celeb…, The Chase and Loose Women in all of their holiday glory!”

Melanie Leach, Co-CEO from South Shore said: “Ever wondered what it would be like to go on holiday with your work mates? This fun filled new format is about to find out as our celebrity cast jet off and try to impress each other with the ultimate holiday itinerary.”

A strong week last week across Total Travel ending what has been a fantastic month of May with all three branches smashing last years sales. Again, late bookings were huge and accounted for a whopping 35% of new bookings with cruise also pulling in 25% of new sales. Top-selling destinations were Turkey and cruises departing from Southampton.