Nearly one million fewer Germans have so far booked their summer holiday than at the same time last year, and travel agency revenues are down by about 9% as of end-January, Gfk said in a bookings analysis ahead of ITB. Online sales on portals and tour operator websites, however, are stable at previous year levels.
Sales revenues for the three major destinations of Turkey, Egypt and Tunisia are more than €500 million below last year with bookings down by about 40% as many Germans wait before making any decisions about booking their summer holidays, the market researchers wrote.
This decline cannot be compensated by the current strong growth for Western Mediterranean destinations such as the Canaries and Balearics and Portugal, GfK pointed out. Holidays in Germany are proving popular with a 12% rise for tour operator domestic holidays, while other self-drive destinations are also seeing good demand.
Long-haul destinations
Among long-haul destinations, the Caribbean is booming with a 27% surge in bookings by Germans, especially for Cuba and the Dominican Republic. Africa, led by South Africa and Namibia, is making a strong comeback with a 12% rise. But major long-haul destinations such as the USA, the Maldives and Thailand have declines of between 11% and 21% compared to the strong previous year, leaving overall long-haul bookings down by 6% as of end-January.
“The choice of holiday destination might be different this year but we don’t expect people to give up their holiday,” commented D?rte Nordback, GfK’s head of Travel & Logistics Germany. “The good consumption climate, the very good employment situation and the real wage increase all favour an optimistic outlook.”
In 2015, Germans went on a total of 109 million holiday trips of several days, a rise of 5%, according to GfK figures. The monthly GfK Travel Insights representative survey analyses some 340,000 bookings made at 1,200 travel agencies.
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