A Bali beach holiday in the UK? Study that targets Brits desperate for an exotic getaway should be taken with a pinch of sand

A British resort company’s study colour-matches beaches from around the world to those in the UK so Brits can ‘enjoy a tropical beach holiday at home’

That many of the beaches are all within easy drives of the company’s holiday parks might explain why they’ve been highlighted as international alternatives

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Holidaymakers sunbathe on Maenam Beach in Koh Samui. A study by British company Parkdean Resorts comparing the sand colour of British beaches to ones around the world matched this beach to West Wittering Beach in the English county of West Sussex. Photo: Universal Images Group via Getty Images

Published: 5:45pm, 8 Sep 2020Updated: 7:54pm, 9 Sep 2020

Would-be holidaymakers trapped in Britain by coronavirus restrictions are getting desperate for an exotic beach holiday.

That’s one conclusion to be drawn from the recent release of Sand Tones, a “study that expertly colour-matches international beaches from around the world to those in the UK to reveal how Brits can enjoy a tropical beach holiday at home”.

Ignoring the fact there’s more to a tropical holiday than the colour of the sand – the actual tropics, for example – Parkdean Resorts, the producer of the survey, suggests that Cornwall’s Fistral Beach is the spitting image of Bali’s Kelingking Beach, and that if you were to spread your towel on West Wittering Beach in West Sussex, you’d swear you were in Koh Samui, Thailand, lounging on Maenam Beach.

Then there’s Bamburgh Beach in Northumberland. Ignore 11th-century Bamburgh Castle in the background, the study says, and you could be on Baia de Sancho on the Brazilian island of Fernando de Noronha, which has just reopened but only to tourists who have recovered from Covid-19.

A comparison between the sands of Bali’s Kelingking Beach (left) and Fistral Beach in the UK from the Sand Tones study. Photo: Parkdean Resorts

British holidaymakers have been buffeted this summer by both Covid-19 restrictions and a flip-flopping government. They have been unable to visit Bali or Koh Samui, for instance, because of entry restrictions in Asia, but even holidays to Europe have been plagued with uncertainty, as the government is prone to making sudden changes to its “travel corridor list”. On August 29, the date of the last adjustment to the list, three more countries were removed, to join the likes of Spain and France – usually big beneficiaries of British tourism – on the naughty step.

“If you arrive in England from the Czech Republic, Jamaica or Switzerland after 4am [on] August 29, 2020, you will need to self-isolate,” reads the official advice. “If you arrived in England from the Czech Republic, Jamaica or Switzerland before 4am [on] August 29, 2020, you may not need to self-isolate.”