Nuremberg, August 31, 2023 - The 2023 summer season is heading for good closing figures: At the current booking level by end of July, the total revenue of last year's 2022 summer season has already been slightly exceeded; the final result of the 2019 summer season is only 3 percent short. It is therefore already obvious that the current 2023 summer season will close on a positive note. The remaining three booking months will merely help to determine the level of growth. The outlook is promising, as incoming bookings are currently significantly higher than in the comparable periods of the previous year and 2019.
During July 2023, German citizens booked vacations for almost 1.7 billion euros in travel agencies and on the online travel portals of tour operators and online travel agencies (OTAs). This represents an increase in sales of 33 percent compared to the same month last year and 35 percent compared to July 2019. The focus of Germans willing to travel continues to be on summer vacations: 39 percent of monthly sales in July are accounted for by vacation trips booked at short notice with departure in July or August. The share of short-term travel bookings is therefore still high. By comparison, in July 2019 the share was 33 percent, i.e. 6 percentage points lower.
Among the that good booking situation, the cumulative summer balance also improves: At the current booking level, the plus compared to the previous year's summer grows to 16 percent. The summer plus to the pre-Corona level 2019 has grown to 9 percent. The increase in sales is influenced by price increases or spending patterns of vacation travelers. In persons to date, 8 percent more have booked a tour operator trip than last summer, but compared to summer 2019, almost one in five is still missing (-18 percent).
Bookings of winter vacations show particularly strong growth in July 2023, with sales up 57 percent on the same month last year. The late summer and fall months of last year were characterized by a reluctance to book in the German market in view of rising inflation. Winter sales levels did not quite keep pace with pre-Corona levels (-8 percent). Around one in five sales euros in July was accounted for by vacation travel for the coming winter half-year. The growth in summer last-minute bookings is not reflected in winter bookings.
Legend:
The chart shows the cumulative travel sales generated up to the end of July 2023 for the ongoing summer season 2023 in comparison to previous years (summer season 2019). For the travel seasons, TDA compares the booking status adjusted for trips that were cancelled in previous years due to corona. Both holiday travel bookings in high street travel agencies and online on the travel portals of the tour operators and online travel agencies (OTAs) with a focus on package tours are included. The chart on the left shows the percentage of sales in the booking month October that belongs to the individual travel months or 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