A “Scrooge effect” seems to be taking hold this Christmas. Bookings have surged at budget hotels as people plan to visit relatives to avoid the cost of festive entertaining.

Hotels offering rooms from as little as £19 a night, big enough for a family of four, are being snapped up, with hotel chains already reporting a doubling of sales year on year.

Traditionally, Christmas is a slow period for bookings since people tend to stay at home, but hoteliers believe that worries about the economic slowdown are prompting relatives to become more sociable. “Normally a lot of people dread the phone call from the mother-in-law asking if they want to come over,” said a spokeswoman for Travelodge, which is offering rooms from £19 at properties across the country. “But now they are jumping at the opportunity.”

She said that she believed some people seemed to be “avoiding the whole stress and cost of entertaining” with booking patterns suggesting that some people are staying for more than just Christmas Day. “It looks like people are turning up with a bottle of wine and staying for as long as three days,” she said.

Premier Inn, Britain's biggest budget chain with more than 500 hotels and 36,000 rooms, has witnessed a similar Scrooge effect in recent weeks as “millions of people look to save money this Christmas”. Its rooms start at £50 and are “far more comfortable than a relative's sofa or spare room”, said a spokesman.

Travelodge has conducted a survey of 3,000 customers in which the average cost of conducting Christmas Day celebrations was worked out at £156.78. However, the business advisory company Deloitte found that the total cost of Christmas last year, with presents included, was £706 per person - up 6 per cent on the previous year.

City Inn is another chain dropping rates to attract Christmas customers, with rooms from £50 a night from December 24-30. People who book before the end of this month are being tempted with free bottles of champagne.

Kayak.co.uk, which has hotels from £52 over Christmas, is making it easier to work out the cost of driving to relatives with a Fuel Cost Calculator. This shows the miles per gallon for different vehicles, the average price of petrol and the estimated miles travelled on journeys.

Bookings for self-catering apartments over the festive period are up 17 per cent at Holidaylettings.co.uk, which has noticed that fewer people are taking skiing trips. It is predicting that “travelling around the UK this Christmas is going to be a big thing”.

Hoseasons, the leading British tour operator, also says self-catering options are selling well - estimating that apartments work out at being a quarter cheaper than hotels. And Sacoapartments.co.uk has more than halved the price of some of its offerings at a dozen cities across Britain, with a two-bedroom apartment sleeping four in Bath on sale for £120 a night over the festive period - £150 less than usual.

Meanwhile, Purplehotels has begun a “Don't wake up next to your Gran” promotion offering “all local families who live within five miles of their local Purplehotel a 10 per cent discount for their friends and relations to use as a peace offering”.

A spokesman recommended staying at a hotel as “relatives are like fish, they go off after three days especially if you have to share your bedroom and be nice at breakfast time”.

But anyone wanting to escape domestic chores and their relatives might prefer to book the Woodbury Park Hotel Golf and Country Club, set in Devon. It has created Christmas packages over three nights that cost £180 per person, with breakfasts and two “free Christmas lunches worth £59.95” thrown in.

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