Nuremberg, January 30, 2025 – As usual, holiday travel sales generated in travel sales weaken in the last booking month of the year due to the public holidays: They are 11 percent below the previous month of November, which was strong in terms of bookings, but can easily keep pace with the good level of the previous year in December 2023 (+2 percent). As growth rates fall over the course of the year, the cumulative seasonal balances are reduced: The current winter season 2024/25 loses two percentage points to a plus of 12 per cent. The coming summer season is down 7 percentage points on the previous month and currently shows cumulative sales growth of 18 per cent. Since the beginning of January, the booking curve in the German tour operator market has again shown its usual steep rise.
In December 2024, 62% of monthly sales are already attributable to bookings for summer holidays in 2025. This is a very significant increase of 7 percentage points compared to the same month last year, which is proportionately at the expense of the current winter season. The main focus of holidaymakers' interest for the summer holidays will be on Mediterranean destinations, with the eastern region continuing to enjoy above-average growth (+21%) as in the previous year. Cruises are also gaining favour among holidaymakers for the coming summer season (sales: +22%, people booked: +27%). Overall, the 2025 summer season is showing an 18% increase in sales compared to the previous year as at the current booking status at the end of December 2024. The number of people booked so far for summer 2025 also exceeds the previous year, currently by 11%. They are only unable to keep pace with the 2019 level (-6 per cent).
In terms of holiday destinations booked, Spain and Turkey are neck-and-neck for first place among the most popular summer destinations. However, Egypt (+45 per cent) and Bulgaria (+36 per cent) currently stand out with particularly high growth rates. The fact that the number of holidaymakers booking holidays in these countries is increasing at a similar rate indicates that the price level in both countries is comparatively stable or favourable. This appears to be fuelling demand at present.
The 2024/25 winter season, which runs until the end of April, accounts for a good third of the monthly sales achieved in the booking month of December 2024. With a cumulative increase in sales of 12 per cent, the current level is just under 81 per cent of last year's winter sales. Almost a fifth of sales, or around 1.3 billion euros in total, are therefore still missing to match - or exceed - the 2023/24 winter season. With a strong booking volume in January and good Easter business, it should still be possible to close the gap.
Legend:
The chart shows the cumulative holiday bookings generated by the end of December 2024 for the current winter season 2024/2025 and the upcoming summer season 2025 compared to the previous year and the pre-corona level (summer 2019, winter 2018/19). TDA's analyses include holiday travel bookings in brick-and-mortar travel agencies as well as online on the travel portals of tour operators and online travel agencies (OTAs) with a focus on package holidays. The chart on the left shows the percentage of sales in the booking month of November accounted for by the individual travel months and seasons.
About TDA Travel Intelligence
Travel Data + Analytics (TDA) took over in spring 2019 the travel sales panel run by the Nuremberg market research company GfK since 2004. After the GfK data had been migrated to a new IT landscape, Travel Intelligence was set up as an independent solution with a self-learning database and associated analysis tool. The basis remains the booking data from stationary travel agencies and online portals that sell tour operator products. The requirements of tourism companies on a modern control instrument and evolving, increasingly dynamic questions can thus be mapped reliably and promptly, without giving up the core of a market-representative method that is consistently comparable over time. TDA = Current booking situation + individual product performance + new market opportunities.
Further information: Alexandra Weigand, alexandra.weigand@traveldataanalytics.de, phone: +49 (0)911 951 510 03