ITV orders primetime brand-funded celebrity travelogue The Great Escapers

ITV has teamed with British package holiday provider Jet2holidays for a primetime travelogue series in which celebrities will be paired up and sent on holiday together.

Katie Rawcliffe

The Great Escapers (4×60′) will be produced by South Shore and is co-funded by Jet2holidays.

It will see the stars of ITV shows such as Coronation Street, I’m A Celebrity…, The Chase or Loose Women travelling to some of Europe’s premiere holiday destinations such as Greece, Spain, Portugal and Malta.

In each episode, three stars will compete to give their colleagues the best holiday experience they can.

Jet2holidays will have a friendly overseas customer helper on hand throughout the experience to help guide each celebrity with their activity choices.

At the end of the trip, the three celebrities will vote for who put together the most memorable day and one of them will be crowned The Greatest Escaper. The show will air on ITV1, ITVX, STV and STV Player later this year.

Katie Rawcliffe, director of entertainment and daytime at ITV, said: “We’ve got some of ITV’s best-known faces flying out to the most gorgeous destinations in this brand new series.”

In related news, ITV is gearing up to launch its entertainment and wildlife crossover format Shark! Celebrity Infested Waters to coincide with the 50th anniversary of iconic movie Jaws.

The celebrities taking the plunge in the Bahamas will be Ade Adepitan, Helen George, Sir Lenny Henry, Ross Noble, Dougie Poynter, Lucy Punch and Rachel Riley.

Coming soon to ITV1, ITVX, STV and STV Player, the series is produced by ITV Studios (ITVS)-owned Plimsoll Productions, distributed by ITVS and was announced last year.

The celebrities will be tasked with diving with different species of shark, which get bigger and more dangerous each time.

Bimini, the Bahamian island where the show will be filmed, is home to different shark types including hammerheads, bull sharks and tiger sharks.