I sat last night watching public-run TV here in Germany....the business news. They came to this brief tidbit....tourism and travel.
There's this update over German reservations and travel arrangements for the coming vacation season.
For those who don't grasp the German mentality about spring and summer vacation periods....Germans take this fairly serious....planning several months in advance. Typically, come January....they open up the catalogs and start talking serious about where they will be going and to what extent (one week, two weeks, three weeks, etc).
Analysis will be done over all-inclusive deals (drinks and food), or just half-board (just breakfast and dinner with no lunch or drinks). Then there's the weather discussion....must it be ultra-hot or just mild? A beach deal or some history adventure deal? A rowdy hotel with Russians in the background, or a quiet place where old Greeks mostly sit around and discuss this woeful year? Do you go radical and visit Ireland....mostly asking if it always rains this much?
So, there's some shock over this coming season. Reservations for Tunisia? Down roughly by seventy-percent. Reservations for Egypt and Turkey? Down by roughly 30-to-35 percent. Reason? Increased terrorism.
Who gains? Spain is on the upswing for German tourists....maybe a record year. This includes Spain itself, the island of Ibiza, and the Canaries (to the far south).
Behind Spain, is Croatia, Italy, Greece, Austria, and France. The normal locations like the US, Asia, and cruises remain steady.
The thing is that Turkey, Egypt and Tunisia have had a lot of success in the past....built large resorts....and are fairly desperate for jobs to exist to make the public happy. Just suffering through one single year of significant decrease is a big deal. If the trend stayed around? Yeah, some serious heartburn.
In the case of all three stagnate locations.....they will likely put up exceptional deals for the resorts and put themselves into a heavily discounted position to attract last-minute visitors. It wouldn't surprise me if you'd start to see some five-star resorts in Egypt offer up a full package (food and drinks inclusive, with airfare and hotel) for 600 Euro (for two weeks).
The thing is...would you travel to some location that occasionally gets mentioned for terror acts? Some Germans are that risky. Most aren't.
A decrease in Germans traveling? No. These are people who have saved their money....will get days and days of vacation time from the company....and demand some type of relaxation. They will go somewhere....even if it's a nickel and dime Bavarian valley trip where some Heidi-gal runs a cheap two-star hotel.
So, if your German associate seems peppy and upbeat....it's probably because he's on the countdown calendar and only sixty days away from some unforgettable vacation to some Greek isle where the sun shines 99-percent of the time, the women will be half-nude, the booze cheap, and the air-conditioning works (at least from 8AM to 8PM). It'll be a dazed look, as they drift back and forth....imagining themselves at buffet eating experience with tons of food, and some waiter bringing them their sixth beer. Your German associate....is in hog-heaven (as we say in the US).
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