Travel Insights Germany - A double-Digit Jump in April

The winter season 2009/2010 came to a close at the end of April 2010 and in a year-on-year comparison vs. 2009, German tourist agencies in the last booking month of the season achieved 11 percent growth in turnover. However all in all the share of last minute bookers was definitely smaller than a year ago (-1.7 percentage points). Therefore the winter season 2009/2010 was down 5.7 percent compared to last month and is rather disappointing in contrast to the very good winter season of the previous year. The total of cancellations due to the ash cloud and standstills in the air traffic may well have had some negative impact on the business results of last winter.

From month to month turnovers for the summer season 2010 are on the increase. Thanks to a 12 percent turnover growth in April, summer in cumulated terms has reached around 4 percent. The travel months in the summer season profited from this without exceptions, but June is lagging further on behind last year.

The monthly analysis confirms a rather weak demand for a holiday in June: Turnover shares of single departure months have remained almost unchanged in comparison with April last year. Apart from a slimmer last minute share for the departure month April (- 1.7 %), only June suffered substantial losses (- 2.1 %). On the other hand, the trend that has been tracked earlier about early booking is again confirmed: 7.3 percent in the total turnover generated by booking in April are destined for the upcoming winter season 2010/2011. Having increased by 3.5 percent, the share of bookings for winter was almost duplicated.

+++

GfK Travel Insights

Evaluations by Travel Insights, GfK’s Tourism Distribution Panel, are based on booking data from approximately 1,200 travel agencies, which convey a representative picture of the stationary distribution in Germany. A constant sample of 340,000 booking entries at average is fed into GfK's systems every month and projected to the total market with utmost accuracy. Hence, evaluations of the Tourism Distribution Panel of GfK allow plausible conclusions on the booking habits of German tourists. Latest trends and developments in the market of tourism can be tracked on a short-term basis.

For more information: www.gfk.com/tourism