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This is where (and how) Germans plan to holiday in 2021

Despite the coronavirus pandemic, travel is still on the minds of many Germans. A comprehensive survey looks at where they're eager to go in the coming year.

Published: 16 November 2020 13:09 CET
Updated: 16 November 2020 15:37 CET
This is where (and how) Germans plan to holiday in 2021
People walk along a promanade on the island of Sylt. Photo: DPA

Hometogo, the search engine for holiday homes and flats, matched 16 million search queries with an externally commissioned survey to find out where Germans will be headed in 2021. 

The result: on the whole, many German are planning to stay home, but as usual many are brimming with Wanderlust as they plan out their next holidays.

A total of 44.4 percent of search queries from the search period January 1st to October 27th 2020 were for destinations in Germany. The most popular holiday searches were for the Baltic Sea, North Sea and Sylt.

READ ALSO: North Sea or Baltic Sea? How to choose between Germany's two coasts

Destinations abroad will lose out in 2021: Croatia came in second place with only 11.05 per cent of search queries – last year it stood at 14.69 percent. 

Italy is in third place with 7.79 per cent compared to 11.58 per cent in the previous year.

As the survey commissioned by Hometogo shows, the Germans' desire to travel still remains: 70 percent of those surveyed intend to travel in the next 12 months. Moreover, 61 percent would rather book a holiday home in 2021, while 31 percent would prefer a hotel. 

According to the survey results, only three percent of those questioned would consider spending the night in a camper van – somewhat surprising after the camping boom in 2020. A full 71 percent, however, plan to travel by car next year.

As far as the type of destinations are concerned, most Germans are drawn to a beach holiday next year (63 percent), but national parks and destinations in the countryside trail only slightly behind (60 percent). 

City breaks were only slightly behind, with 52 percent of those surveyed saying that they would like to venture into a bigger city on their holidays. 

For the month of November, Germany has imposed a hospitality ban for hotels, pensions and guests homes for holiday travellers as part of a partial lockdown. It is not yet clear if the restriction will be extended after November ends.

READ ALSO: Is Germany set to tighten shutdown measures?

Vocabulary

travel destination – (das) Reisezeil

Baltic Sea – (die) Ostsee

search queries – (die) Suchanfragen

restrictions – (die) Einschränkungen

We're aiming to help our readers improve their German by translating vocabulary from some of our news stories. Did you find this article useful? Let us know.

 

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COVID-19

Is the pandemic over in Germany?

As much of Germany lifts - or prepares to lift - the last remaining Covid-19 measures, intensive care units say Covid-19 admissions are no longer straining the system.

Published: 24 January 2023 09:00 CET
Is the pandemic over in Germany?

Despite a difficult winter of respiratory illnesses, intensive care units in Germany say Covid-19 admissions have almost halved. The number of cases having to be treated in the ICU has gone down to 800 from 1,500 at the beginning of this month.

“Corona is no longer a problem in intensive care units,” Gernot Marx, Vice President of the German Interdisciplinary Association for Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine, told the German Editorial Network. “A the moment, we don’t have to think every day about how to still ensure the care of patients, but how to actually run a service that can help.”

Marx said the drop has allowed them to catch up on many postponed surgeries.

The number of sick employees in hospitals is also falling, helping to relieve the pressure on personnel.

The easing pressure on hospitals correlates with the assessment of prominent virologist and head of the Virology department at Berlin’s Charite – Christian Drosten – who said in December that the pandemic was close to ending, with the winter wave being an endemic one.

German federal and state governments are now in the midst of lifting the last of the country’s pandemic-related restrictions. Free Covid-19 antigen tests for most people, with exceptions for medical personnel, recently ended.

READ ALSO: Free Covid-19 tests end in Germany

Six federal states – Bavaria, Baden-Württemberg, Hessen, Thuringia, Lower Saxony, and Schleswig-Holstein – have ended mandatory isolation periods for people who test positive for Covid-19.

Bavaria, Saxony-Anhalt, and Schleswig-Holstein have ended the requirement to wear FFP2 masks on public transport, while Berlin, Brandenburg, Saxony, Thuringia, and Mecklenburg-West Pomerania will follow suit on February 2nd.

At that time, the federal government will also drop its requirement for masks to be worn on long-distance trains. Labour Minister Hubertus Heil says that’s when he also intends to exempt workplaces – apart from medical locations – from a mask requirement.

READ ALSO: Germany to drop mask mandate in trains and buses from February 2nd

Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg will also end the requirement for patients to wear a mask in doctor’s offices. That’s a requirement that, so far, will stay in place everywhere else. Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach has also said that he thinks this requirement should remain. 

But some public health insurers and general practitioners are calling for a nationwide end to the obligation for wearing masks in doctor’s offices.

“The pandemic situation is over,” National Association of Statutory Health Physicians (KBV) Chair Andreas Gassen told the RND network. “High-risk patients aren’t treated in all practices. It should generally be left up to medical colleagues to decide whether they want to require masks in their practices.”

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