Germans love to travel so much, they even invented a word for it…
(Click here if you would like to read a German version of this post)
If I asked you to guess which country sends the most tourists abroad you might plump for the USA (pop. 326m), or maybe China (pop.1.4bn). The correct answer however, would be Germany (pop. a mere 80.6m)….ok, I suppose the headline gave it away a bit.
Much of this is cultural, for many Germans holidays are a 100% non-negotiable right whatever the financial climate. Four-fifths defiantly refuse to cut back on the length of their holidays to save money and two-thirds insist they are not prepared to save money by cutting back on their holiday spend
Furthermore, with the number of low-cost flights from Germany higher than ever and competition between low-cost airlines in Europe pushing prices down, Germans will be going abroad in unprecedented numbers this summer.
Per capita, Germans spend five times more on international travel than the Chinese
A record 23.5m air passengers have already boarded planes in Germany over the first three months of 2017 and, according to research from Handelsblatt, not only are they globe-trotting more, they are spending more as well. On average Germans spent €983 ($1,092) on holidays last year, compared to €792 ($879) in 2000. In fact, other than China and the USA, Germans spend more on foreign travel than any other nation – almost €72bn per year. Not only that, but on a per capita basis Germans spend 2.5 times more travelling abroad than Americans and a staggering five times more than the Chinese.
Spain remains the favoured holiday destination for German tourists, with 3.6m visiting last summer. In fact they love it so much that many visitors have decided to purchase property there: Builders, Taylor Wimpey España, recently reported that their sales of houses to Germans rose by 40% last year, with 93% of those sales in Mallorca alone (I feel duty-bound here to point out that last year 8 out of 10 German arrivals in Mallorca flew in on an Ink airline, whether that was Eurowings, TUI, airberlin, or easyJet).