And yet we do travel! German tourists in times of COVID-19
Prof. Dr. Jürgen Schmude, Department for Geography, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich
Germany, or rather German tourists, are described as the world's travel champions. They feel all the harder hit by the pandemic-related travel restrictions. However, the majority of Germans have not reacted by not travelling in the pandemic years 2020 and 2021. Therefore, the presentation deals with the reactions of the German population to the COVID-19 framework and the resulting changes in travel behavior. Based on large-scale, representative individual data on travel behavior in the longitudinal perspective, it will be analyzed on the one hand which parameters in the travel behavior of the German population have changed (including participation in travel, socio-demographic changes in travelers’ structures, choice of destination, etc.). It becomes apparent that there have been significant changes in the importance of individual parameters. For example, during the pandemic, age is a more important influencing factor than disposable household income, which had the greatest impact before COVID-19. On the other hand, the impact of these changes on the German tourism industry is examined for different types of tourism service providers. One result among others is the fact, that some German destinations experienced an all-time high in tourism arrivals and overnight stays in the summer months of 2020 and 2021 due to the strong increase in domestic tourism demand which particularly affected rural areas and led to an overtourism discussion there. Finally, the developments observed in Germany are compared with those of individual neighbouring countries (e.g. France) in order to be able to identify transnational regularities and national singularities.
Mots clés : COVID-19|travel behavior|tourism demand|tourism industry
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