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Staycations boom in Germany amid heavy losses to tourism industry

Staycations in Germany are all the rage this summer. In some particularly popular regions this new trend is driving accommodation prices upwards.

Published: 10 August 2020 18:24 CEST
Staycations boom in Germany amid heavy losses to tourism industry
Beachgoers in Warnemünde, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. Photo: DPA

Packed beaches on the North and Baltic Sea coasts, Alpine foothills overflowing with tourists: Despite a boom in travel to many holiday destinations, estimates suggest that the German tourism sector will be unable to make up for the losses caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

“The bottom line is that there will be no such thing as a German tourism boom this year. The losses sustained during lockdown were simply too high”, said Norbert Kunz, director of the German Tourism Association (DTV). 

Now holidaymakers are faced with even higher prices when booking accommodation in particularly popular regions. Kunz spoke of price rises of up to 10 percent.

The North and Baltic Seas and the Alpine foothills are particularly popular amongst Germans at the moment, according to his observations.

Holiday accommodation by the coast in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania has reached around 80 percent capacity for July and August. 

READ ALSO: Holiday homes at North and Baltic Sea 90 percent full as Germans choose staycations

“However, this year not even the most popular regions will come close to matching last year’s profits,” Kunz told DPA. This is due in part to the fact that hotels, guesthouses, camping grounds, and also restaurants and cafes cannot operate at full capacity due to current social distancing regulations. 

This problem is further compounded by a near total lack of foreign tourists in many regions. According to Kurz, there are not enough German holidaymakers to compensate for the resultant economic downturn. 

At least 29 percent of Germans no longer have a holiday planned for this year, according to a survey conducted by the Consumer Research Association (GfK). 

Tourists on the island of Usedom on June 27th. Photo: DPA

Those who do have a holiday on the horizon are mainly travelling to German destinations, above all to Bavaria and Mecklenberg-Western Pomerania. Seventeen percent of those surveyed are still planning a foreign getaway to other countries in Europe. 

READ ALSO: Weekend Wanderlust: How to travel the world without leaving Germany

According to Kunz, regions such as the Thuringian Forest, Sauerland (in North Rhine-Westphalia) Eifel (a low mountain range in western Germany), Taunus (a mountain range located north of Frankfurt), the Brandenburg lakes and the Harz mountains are also profiting from the staycation boom.

Hotels in the Harz Mountains, for instance, reported a significant increase in bookings in June and July. Kunz described the shift as a “strong trend toward nature”.

READ ALSO: North or Baltic Sea? How to decide between Germany's two coasts

All in all, however, the Tourist Association sees no prospect of relief for the industries hardest hit by the coronavirus crisis. 

“A fifth of all tourism businesses are fighting to survive, they are still dependent on government support,” explained the director of the Tourism Association. He called for the provision of Kurzarbeitgeld (financial support for workers with reduced hours) to be extended.

At present cover is available for up to 12 months. In addition, the obligation to file for insolvency is set to remain suspended until at least the end of September.

A ban on overnight stays for leisure purposes was introduced in Germany in mid-March due to the coronavirus pandemic. Individual German states lifted the ban at various points in the second half of May.

Translated by Eve Bennett.

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TRAVEL NEWS

Why are fewer British tourists visiting Spain this year?

Almost 800,000 fewer UK holidaymakers have visited Spain in 2023 when compared to 2019. What’s behind this big drop?

Published: 23 August 2023 11:36 CEST
Updated: 26 August 2023 18:32 CEST
Why are fewer British tourists visiting Spain this year?

Spain welcomed 12.2 million UK tourists between January and July 2023, 6 percent less when compared to the same period in 2019, according to data released on Monday by Spanish tourism association Turespaña.

This represents a decrease of 793,260 British holidaymakers for Spain so far this year.

Conversely, the number of Italian (+8 percent), Irish (+15.3 percent), Portuguese (+24.8 percent), Dutch (+4 percent) and French tourists (+5 percent) visiting España in 2023 are all above the rates in 2019, the last pre-pandemic year. 

German holidaymakers are together with their British counterparts the two main nationalities showing less interest in coming to Spanish shores.

Britons still represent the biggest tourist group that comes to Spain, but it’s undergoing a slump, with another recent study by Caixabank Research suggesting numbers fell particularly in June 2023 (-12.5 percent of the usual rate). 

READ ALSO: Spain fully booked for summer despite most expensive holiday prices ever

So are some Britons falling out of love with Spain? Are there clear reasons why a holiday on the Spanish coast is on fewer British holiday itineraries?

According to Caixabank Research’s report, the main reasons are “the poor macroeconomic performance of the United Kingdom, the sharp rise in rates and the weakness of the pound”.

This is evidenced in the results of a survey by British market research company Savanta, which found that one in six Britons are not going on a summer holiday this year due to the UK’s cost-of-living crisis.

Practically everything, everywhere has become more expensive, and that includes holidays in Spain: hotel stays are up 44 percent, eating out is 13 percent pricier, and flights are 40 percent more on average. 

READ ALSO: How much more expensive is it to holiday in Spain this summer?

Caixabank stressed that another reason for the drop in British holidaymakers heading to Spain is that those who can afford a holiday abroad are choosing “more competitive markets” such as Turkey, Greece and Portugal. 

And there’s no doubt that the insufferably hot summer that Spain is having, with four heatwaves so far, has also dissuaded many holidaymakers from Blighty from overcooking in the Spanish sun. 

With headlines such as “This area of Spain could become too hot for tourists” or “tourists say it’s too hot to see any sights” featuring in the UK press, budding British holidaymakers are all too aware of the suffocating weather conditions Spain and other Mediterranean countries are enduring. 

Other UK outlets have urged travellers to try out the cooler Spanish north rather than the usual piping hot Costa Blanca and Costa del Sol destinations.

Another UK poll by InsureandGo found that 71 percent of the 2,000+ British respondents thought that parts of Europe such as Spain, Greece and Turkey will be too hot to visit over summer by 2027.

There’s further concern that the introduction in 2024 of the new (and delayed) ETIAS visa for non-EU visitors, which of course now also applies to UK nationals, could further compel British tourists to choose countries to holiday in rather than Spain.

READ MORE: Will British tourists need to pay for a visa waiver to enter Spain?

However, a drop in the number of British holidaymakers may not be all that bad for Spain, even though they did spend over €17 billion on their Spanish vacations in 2022. 

Towns, cities and islands across the country have been grappling with the problem of overtourism and the consequences it has on everything from quality of life for locals to rent prices. 

READ ALSO: ‘Beach closed’ – Fake signs put up in Spain’s Mallorca to dissuade tourists

The overcrowded nature of Spain’s beaches and most beautiful holiday hotspots appears to be one of the reasons why Germans are visiting Spain in far fewer numbers. A recent report in the country’s most read magazine Stern asked “if the dream is over” in their beloved Mallorca.

Spanish authorities are also seeking to overhaul the cheaper holiday package-driven model that dominates many resorts, which includes moving away from the boozy antics of young British and other European revellers.

Fewer tourists who spend more are what Spain is theoretically now looking for, and the rise in American, Japanese and European tourists other than Brits signify less of a dependence on the British market, one which tends to maintain the country’s tourism status quo for better or for worse.

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