Brits vote the best and worst celebrity road trip companions

20th August 2018 – Ed Sheeran is Brits top choice on a road-trip, according to an independent study released today, with Piers Morgan at the other end of the scale.

Budget Car Rental UK, who commissioned the survey, has today revealed the list of most favoured celebrity travel buddies and those we would rather avoid. The leading mobility provider conducted an independent, European-wide survey to discover who we would most like to travel with on a long car journey, with hit-maker Ed Sheeran topping the list amongst British respondents.

Whereas, Piers Morgan was voted the celebrity Brits would least like to take a road trip with.

The all-time top five celebrity travel companions according to Brits are: singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran, followed by Will Smith – who has recently made a comeback and is racking up the followers on Instagram – Carpool Karaoke favourite James Cordon, with Car Share’s Peter Kay in fourth place, and HRH Queen Elizabeth in fifth.

The stars we wouldn’t want to sacrifice a front seat for are journalist Piers Morgan, followed by Kim Kardashian, Justin Bieber, and Katie Hopkins, with Jeremy Clarkson taking fifth place.

European Results
Across Europe, results largely reflected those of the UK, although Jump in my Car crooner David Hasselhoff was an unsurprising hit in Austria, Germany and Switzerland, ranking in the top ten in each location. Cristiano Ronaldo, Paris Hilton and Johnny Depp were much less popular in mainland Europe, featuring near the bottom of the list across most countries surveyed.

Best parts of the journey
As part of a wider initiative to identify the most enjoyable and sometimes stressful moments of our journeys, Budget Car Rental conducted a European-wide study ahead of the peak summer period to help understand what the public love and loath about long car trips.

Alongside the celebrity wish list, the survey also uncovered what Brits love the most about travelling by car on vacation. Most (47%) are enamoured by the surroundings and sightseeing, while 32% simply enjoy the journey itself, and 29% appreciate the flexibility and freedom in their plans that car travel gives them.

"At Budget UK we always put our customers first. Undertaking a survey of this size really helps us to identify how we can make travel experiences more enjoyable and maximise the time spent on a well-deserved vacation. The summer is a peak time for car rentals. Whilst we can’t promise that Ed Sheeran will be waiting for customers when they collect their keys, we do offer a number of tools and services to help get people from point A to B as quick and conveniently as possible,” said Nina Bell, Managing Director of Avis Budget Group for the UK and Scandinavia, and Zipcar UK.

“With passengers saying they most enjoy the freedom of the open road we provide a wide range of vehicles in our fleet to help make the journey more comfortable for long drives. We also offer a number of extras available upon booking to cater for all journey types, including Satellite Navigation (Sat-Nav), in car Wi-Fi, as well as roof and surf racks for more adventure travellers.”

For more information about booking with Budget UK, visit www.budget.co.uk.

*Avis Budget Group commissioned an online survey with research agency Sapio of 14,138 consumers across Europe aged 18-66+ including 1,004 British people in July 2018.

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 travellers 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

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