The Covid-19 pandemic has had an unprecedented effect on the German tourism industry. Due to various restrictions and travel warnings, Germans’ travel behavior changed a lot in the last couple of months.
Tourists opted for destinations within their own national borders. The Black Forest as well as the Baltic and the North Sea were particularly popular. But what are the prospects for 2021? Will there be any more changes in tourism behavior considering the likelihood of wider availability of a vaccine?
Not Italy, Not Croatia
Hometogo, the search engine for holiday homes and apartments, analyzed 16 million searches to find out where Germans are going in 2021. The result? Generally, many of them want to stay at home.
However, 44.4% of the search queries from the period of January 1 to October 27, 2020, were for travel destinations in Germany. The most popular destinations are once again the Baltic Sea, North Sea and Sylt. In the same period last year, Germany was the front runner with 27.55%, but the share increased by 61.15% in 2021.
In the meantime, travel destinations abroad will lose out next year. Croatia is in second place with just 11.05% of search queries. This is a decrease compared to last year’s 14.69%. Italy ranked third with 7.79% compared to 11.5% in the previous year.
Change in Germans’ Travel Behavior
As the survey shows, the desire of Germans to travel has not yet been broken. 70% of those surveyed want to travel within the next 12 months. 61% would also be more likely to book a holiday home in 2021, while 31% would prefer a hotel.
According to the survey results, an overnight stay in a campervan is only an option for 3% of those surveyed – somewhat surprising after the camping boom. However, 71% plan to travel by car next year.
As far as the type of travel destination is concerned, most Germans will be drawn to the beach next year (63%), but national parks and nature destinations will follow closely behind (60%). City trips are not far from this, with a share of 52% of those surveyed.