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If you haven’t been living under a rock, you’ve likely heard the tune of the viral Jet2 holiday meme running through both your algorithm and your brain on repeat.
Set to the 2015 Jess Glynne song “Hold My Hand,” the viral meme of the summer tells us that “nothing beats a Jet2 holiday.” Originally an advertisement for Jet2, the popular British low-cost airline, the tune has taken over TikTok and Instagram, but not for its original purpose of luring in travelers for its budget-friendly offerings of “up to 50 pounds off per person.” (The ad kindly reminds even the worst of us math students how that’s up to 200 pounds off for a family of four.) Instead, the ad has been fully meme-ified, becoming instantly identified with travel disaster videos. One scroll of social media and you’ll find everything from an elephant wrapping its trunk around a tourist’s head in Thailand to a woman attempting to boogie board on Royal Caribbean’s Flow Rider surf simulator, only to have her bikini top fly off.
While a silly meme is all in good fun, experts say its viral nature is actually indicative of industry truths. Lia Vincent, owner of Vincent Vacations, says the meme’s association with travel catastrophes is a reminder why travelers should lean on experts to plan their trips, since “you get what you pay for.”
“I almost think it can be easily turned into ‘these are the kind of crazy travel experiences if you take a budget vacation,’” said Vincent. “So, maybe I need to contact somebody to make sure I’m going to have a good experience.”
Still, Vincent notes that chaotic things can happen on even the most luxurious of trips, citing the Jet2 meme example of tourists attempting to enter the Blue Grotto sea cave in Capri despite rising waves nearly sealing them in.
Others say it’s an indicator of where the travel industry stands. When 2025 kicked off, many were worried the industry would go bust as the year went on.
“The start of the year was certainly filled with a lot of volatility, and a lot of it had some weird callbacks to the COVID era,” said Jared Benoff, CEO of Vacationeeze. “There was a lot of starts and stops, like ‘I’m gonna book my trip– actually, no wait.’”
But as anyone in the know has seen, that’s the furthest thing from the truth. According to Deloitte’s Summer Travel Survey, 53% of Americans plan to take a leisure vacation, up from 48% in 2024, making this year one of the highest-incidence summers since the pandemic.
“People are looking for a reason to travel,” said Benoff. “The meme supports that. If you look at any number of different videos that the meme is showing, it’s happening domestically. It’s happening in the Caribbean, in Mexico, in Europe. People are trying to find a way to get out and do something fun with their friends and family.”
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