A stocktaking of the travel year shows that the holiday classics of the Germans at the Mediterranean experienced a higher demand than ever before. Spain, Portugal, Italy and Greece recorded significant growth rates in terms of number of vacationers. And cruises as well as partly also long-haul trips likewise continue their growth trend of the previous years. By contrast, the crises in Turkey, Egypt and Tunisia had an impact on the travel behaviour and resulted in significant declines in bookings.
The turnover figures for the tour operator and travel agent market during the tourism year 2015-2016 now coming to an end (cut-off date: 31 October) reflect this shift in vacationer flows: for the first time after years with a constant growth, the turnover decreased – according to the first projections of the German Travel Association (DRV) – in the tour operator market probably by around EUR 1 billion. Consequently, turnover dropped by 3-4% to probably around EUR 26.3 billion.
For the high-street travel agency market a decrease by 2-3% to approximately EUR 22.9 billion results from the projections. This market includes both the tourism and the business travel segment. The turnover with business travel included in this overall number of around EUR 7.4 billion has been flat versus prior year. However, the business travel expenses of German companies experienced different developments in the individual business segments. In some segments, travel expenses are rigorously reviewed whilst more travelling is deployed, for instance, in the booming export segments. Overall, the turnover of the travel agents remained on the prior year level.
Travel agencies: number of travel agencies continues to be stable
Concerning the number of high-street travel agencies, a further stabilisation was recorded in 2016 to now a total of 9,909 agencies. “This clearly shows that apart from customers, tour operators are aware of and appreciate the value of travel agencies as well – also in view of the satisfaction of customers. Professional, personal advice for the customer addressing very different needs of the customer individually hence pays off for all sides,” says DRV President Norbert Fiebig.
The trends of the tourism year: this is how Germans spent their vacation
Based on the travel bookings in the high-street travel distribution which is regularly measured and analysed by the marketing research company GfK, there has been a shift in travel flows of German vacationers from east to west.
• The medium-range destinations
Holiday trips to the Canary Islands, the Balearic Islands and the Spanish mainland have significantly increased. With double-digit turnover growth in the travel agencies, Greece, Portugal and Bulgaria were in high demand for the summer vacation. By contrast, the destination countries Turkey, Egypt and Tunisia lost significantly in turnover, between 40 and 60%. Whilst the holiday countries in the Eastern Mediterranean were still representing more than a fourth of the total turnover last year, their share in the current travel year amounts to 20%. Against the backdrop of the shifting tendencies emerging at the beginning of the year, the tour operators subsequently booked capacities for many countries to be able to serve the incremental demand for the alternative holiday regions – such as Spain and Portugal.
• Long-haul trips
Long-haul trips have turned out to be a growing vacation segment with a 3% increase in turnover, although the large long-haul markets USA and Thailand were booked slightly weaker than a year before. The demand for the Maldives also slightly declined. As far as the share in turnover is concerned, long-haul trips account during the tourism year 2015-2016 for 22% of the travel agency turnover – an increase by almost two percentage points versus prior year. The high and growing demand has emerged above all from the Caribbean destinations (+ 16%) – driven by the Dominican Republic and Cuba. Long-haul trips to Africa (+14%), mainly to the popular vacation countries South Africa, Kenya and Namibia, recovered visibly after the dips following the Ebola outbreak. A low single digit growth in turnover was also been reported for the United Arab Emirates.
• The cruises
The cruise segment is again clearly amongst the winners for 2016. The ongoing rise in demand and additional capacities have contributed a significant increase in turnover in the upper single digit percentage range for this segment.
• The short-range destinations
The so-called earthbound destinations within and in the direct vicinity of Germany – ie trips by car, rail or bus – have benefited from the weak demand for the Eastern Mediterranean.
• The impact on the top ten
The strong growth rates for the Mediterranean classics, long-haul trips and cruises were on aggregate not able to fully compensate the decline for Turkey as well as Tunisia and Egypt so popular with families – for providers of earthbound trips as well as vacation homes and many specialists and bus travel operators. The significance of Turkey as a vacation destination had become too large during the past years. Despite a clear drop, the country nonetheless remained amongst the top three destinations in high-street distribution, according to calculations by GfK – shortly behind the Canary Islands and the Balearic Islands. Greece came in fourth. Portugal made it with this year’s growth to the top ten list.
Outlook: the booking season for winter has started
On 1 November 2016, the new tourism year 2016-2017 starts with the winter season. Altogether the bookings for the next month are still below prior year. What emerges already very clearly for the forthcoming season is a strong growth for Spanish destinations and, more particularly, the Canary Islands. Winter vacations on the Balearic Islands are currently also experiencing a higher demand than during the comparable prior year period. This also applies to the Easter holidays. Since many tour operators have extended their offer in Egypt, there might be again a stronger demand for this country booked primarily as a winter destination.
For the summer of 2017, the booking phase will only start in a few weeks; at present the tour operators are putting together their programmes for the coming year. Although some trips can already be booked for summer 2017, the database is currently still low, so that it is not yet possible to establish any sound trends.