What's wrong with "give away a holiday to Barbados"?

Question

I'm having a discussion with someone who states that you can't use "to"  after holiday in the sentence "We are giving away a holiday to  Barbados", and that the allowable usage is "give away a holiday in  Barbados" or "give away a trip to Barbados". Can anyone explain or  refute his reasoning?

Waïti · Accepted Answer

If you consider the best equivalent to 'holidays' in this sentence, assuming you have the choice between the notion of 'staying IN' and the notion of 'travelling TO', then I believe it makes sense to opt for number 1 that is to say 'staying IN' as the preferred choice. In other words your holiday time is the time you'd spend staying IN Barbados, not the time you'd spend travelling TO Barbados... I would think.

Anonymous · Answer

What about a holiday to the red sea, or a holiday to the moon? With the  former, "in" doesn't make sense, though I suppose you could also use  "at", and with the latter, the journey would almost certainly be part  of the holiday. Anyway, I can't see any grammatical reason to disallow  the use of "a holiday to".

Savvysavz · Answer

That's because you can't 'stay in a sea' nor 'stay in the moon' but you can very well stay in Barbados,Rome (or any city for that matter).

Savvy

Wwwdotcom · Answer

Give an apple TO the teacher.  This makes Barbados in this example the  receiver when it's not. The holiday is being given TO the winner.

Clive · Answer

Hi guys,

I'd like to add a comment.

We speak of a trip to London, a visit to London, a drive to London.

In words like trip/visit/drive, there is a sense of movement. I don't feel that in the word holiday.

(In NAmE, we usually speak of a vacation rather than a holiday.)

Best wishes, Clive

MrPedantic · Answer

To judge by the googles, the people who give away holidays as prizes are using "to" instead of "in" to impart a sense of movement.

I suppose they think it makes the prize sound more lively. (Which I suppose it does.)

MrP

Anonymous · Answer

I guess part of it is movement. If you flew to Australia from Europe  for a week, you would spend almost a third of your holiday travelling.  However, even if you lived in New York and were offered a holiday to  Boston, it doesn't sound wrong to me. A holiday to Boston implies the  travel is included in the holiday. A holiday in Boston just seems to  discount the travel portion, such that you might have to pay to get  there yourself.

CalifJim · Answer

All the following sound wrong to me.

a holiday to Boston
a vacation to Boston
a day to Boston
a few days to Boston
a good time to Boston
a holiday to the moon
a holiday to an island

All the following sound right to me.

a trip to Boston
a journey to Boston
a drive to Boston

a holiday in Boston
a vacation in Boston
a holiday on the moon
a holiday on an island

CJ

Robyn Terri · Answer

It has already been mentioned that 'to' is most often used when advertizing competitions that have holidays as prizes. I have noticed that 'to' is used when the trip to and from is included in the prize. 'In' is used when you have to get yourself there.
Here we often have prized for holidays in Margaret River (wine region and beaches) because it is driving distance away the holidays are 'in' Margaret River. When the prize is a holiday interstate or overseas, the prize is 'to' Melbourne, airfares included as well as hotel accomodation etc.

Wwwdotcom · Answer

'To" is also used to indicate a receiver:

1a. talk to ___
1b. wrote to ___

2a. help __ to __
2b. gave __ to __

3a. __ was instructed to __
3b. __ was told to __

4. Please __ to __

What's wrong with "give away a holiday to Barbados"?

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