The short trip portal “kurz-mal-weg” has analyzed its booking data for the new year of 2022. The results of the evaluation provide insights into the booking behavior as well as travel patterns among the vacationers from Germany, Austria and Switzerland.
Booking Behavior Increasingly Decoupled from Pandemic Situation
In addition to the uncertainty regarding the long-term booking situation, tourism, as well as the hotel industry, are currently facing the question of whether and when booking demand will increase this year. The data supplies first answers.
Stephan Kloss, managing director of KMW stated: "In the past, we could still recognize a strong correlation between covid cases and reservations. Up to date the two values decouple increasingly from each other, and high incidences of covid do not necessarily mean fewer reservations any longer. While our incoming bookings reached a half-year low in October 2021 with rising Corona case numbers, they are currently almost back at the summer level. Thus, despite record incidences, we can currently look forward to a ten times higher booking volume than in October."
Long-term Bookings and Foreign Travel on the Rise
Nevertheless, experts expect that the currently very good booking volume will not remain permanently at this level after a further, short-term increase. In contrast to the past two years, in which vacation bookings were made rather spontaneously due to the uncertain pandemic situation, this year customers decide earlier on their travel bookings. These travel patterns have been seen for example in the number of long-term bookings, which for the travel portal represent 45 percent. In the comparable period of the pre-Corona year 2019, the share of long-term bookings was 32 percent.
"We can already see a change in our customers' booking behavior. This assumption is also underlined by a recent analysis by HolidayCheck for Focus magazine, according to which one in three traveler has already booked their vacation for this year. Another interesting aspect of the analysis is the question of popular travel destinations. Sunny destinations such as Turkey or Egypt land on the top ranks for 2022. Germany, on the other hand, does not make it into the top seven," explains Stephan Kloss. Hoteliers should pay attention to these forecasts in order to ensure basic occupancy early on. The short-term pickup could be lower this year.
City Hotel Industry Benefits Much Earlier This Year
While vacation hotels have been able to register record numbers of guests in recent years, hotels in major cities, in particular, are still fearful for their existence due to a lack of trade fair visitors, congress participants or business travelers. Already in the first half of 2021, city hotels hardly benefited from tourism - for example, the share of city hotel bookings for short trips was constant at only around 20 percent from January to May. As predicted in an earlier booking analysis by KMW, the city hotel industry was able to catch up in the second half of the year and in August 2021 recorded a 44 percent share of incoming bookings on the online portal.
Experts expect a positive development for city tourism in 2022. The proportion of bookings is already 33 percent, with a significantly higher level of incoming bookings than in 2021. As soon as event and leisure offers that are so typical for city trips are fully possible again, the booking volume for urban destinations will rise sharply once again.
Vacation with Increased Need for Entertainment
Another travel pattern reveals that "wellness and beauty," "thermal world," and "amusement parks and zoos" are particularly popular. In the course of the pandemic, however, outdoor themes such as hiking, cycling or independent city discovery tours increasingly came into focus. The short trip portal believes that outdoor activities will also play a major role in 2022. But a counter-trend will also emerge: "We see a great pent-up demand for trips that focus on visits to spas, amusement parks, zoo excursions or events. People have had to accept restrictions on these topics in particular for a long time and now want to integrate these activities into their next vacation," says Stephan Kloss.