Germans love traveling. From multi-day city breaks, hiking holidays, cycling or cruises to casual beach holidays, which are the most popular according to statistics, German travelers like it all. According to data on travel behavior, just under 55 million travelers in Germany undertake around 70 million holiday trips annually.
On average, they travel 13 days, preferably in the Far East, North Africa or Spain. However, travel destinations within Germany, like Mecklenburg-Vorpommern at the Baltic Sea in the summer or skiing in Bavaria during winter, are in high demand. But in general, one thing is always important for the average German tourist: security.
Young people like organized travelling
Pre-booked package holidays play an important role for German travelers. These include the all-inclusive trips as well as holiday trips, in which tourists can book some services in advance, usually online. These trips accounted for a good 43% of total trips in 2018. And the surprising aspect about this is that even young people between the ages of 14 and 29 like organized travelling, with a share of 44%. They book organized trips even more frequently than 30 to 49-year-olds (40%).
The popularity of package holidays seemed to be on a downfall in recent years, but their nature has developed recently. The image of a package holiday has changed, and it is now highly individualized, and holidaymakers can put together individual building blocks.
Security and sustainable travel
In terms of total expenditure in the travel market, package trips amounted to a total of 53% last year. The trend is increasing, and German tourists rely on the safety and security of organized travel. Experts call 2018 an “absolute package holiday year”.
One can speculate about the reasons. Maybe it is due to the price war of the big tour operators. Tourism companies TUI and Thomas Cook do not earn that much money on package holidays anymore. According to estimates, the profit margins of package holidays are one to three percent.
Thus, corporations are changing their strategy and are putting more emphasis on their own hotels and cruise ships as well as other services. Higher prices can only be demanded by providers of special tours such as trekking tours, which are based on small groups.
Incidentally, sustainable travel is becoming a trend. The online portal Statista from Hamburg writes that almost 54% of German travelers would like to make their journey sustainable.