New figures show that Brits made nearly 14 million travel bookings in 2007, travelmole.com reports.

Records released by the Guild of Travel Management Companies (GTMC) shows a collection of data listing all forms of travel transaction in Britain ranging from hotel reservations to purchasing travel insurance or even booking a flight.

The data also shows that there was a 23 per cent increase in rail bookings. Additionally, ‘other transactions’ such as airport car parking, passport services and booking travel insurance increased by 27 per cent to reach 676,000 transactions. 

GTMC chief executive Philip Carlisle said: "In the end, 2007 turned out to be even better than we had hoped. At the end of our third quarter, I was predicting that we would top 13 million transactions. In fact, that proved to be a conservative estimate, as we ended the year just 40,000 bookings shy of the 14 million mark."

Carlisle added that many travellers disregarded any panic surrounding the credit crunch, reports mole.com.

He said: "While our leaders were warning of a spectacular slump, Britain's business community took no notice and got on with the job of boosting the UK economy."

Travel companies are now able to serve their customers better mainly because they now offer extra services such as visa and travel insurance and visa.