Reiseanalyse Trend Study

The Reiseanalyse Trend Study describes the development lines of the demand side of holiday tourism in Germany from the 1970s to 2030. The empirical basis for the study is provided by the data basis from more than 50 years of Reiseanalyse (RA) of the Forschungsgemeinschaft Urlaub und Reisen (FUR) e.V. (Research Association for Holidays and Travel).

The RA time series provide a reliable overall picture of the development of tourism demand in Germany over the past decades. The development data also always point to the future. The search for regular correlations in the past and their extrapolation into the future allow statements about the probable direction and strength of travel trends in the coming decade.

The basic principle of data-based consideration applies to the Reiseanalyse Trend Study: the authors’ knowledge of methods, data and the industry, together with the time series data of the RA of the last 50 years, form the basis for the prospective assessments in the publication.

Holiday demand in the source market Germany

In October 2020, the fifth edition of the Reiseanalyse Trend Study was published with a time horizon into the travel year 2030. At the time of publication, the worldwide Corona pandemic was just half a year old. The authors had taken its impact on tourism demand in Germany into account in the best possible way in the trend description at that time. However, there was little market data on consumer behaviour during the pandemic that would have allowed conclusions to be drawn about the future.

It has always been the claim of the Forschungsgemeinschaft to provide the tourism industry and all those interested in tourism with up-to-date and relevant information on holiday travel demand. We are meeting this challenge, also and especially in these turbulent times, with an update of the Trend Study.

Update 2021 and Update 2022: Influences of current developments on tourism demand

Detailed data on the influence of the Corona pandemic on the travel behaviour of Germans are available from six survey waves within the RA face-to-face and the RA online between summer 2020 and 2021. These data, together with the findings from numerous scientific publications, allow a more precise assessment of future developments. Therefore, the FUR presented a first update on the RA trend study, which offers an assessment of the further development.

With the war in Ukraine, the price development and rising inflation, further uncertainties for tourism evolved in 2022. In the meantime, further survey data from the Reiseanalyse 2022 on the influence of the current crises on tourism demand development are available, which make an updated assessment of the expected trends until 2030 possible. Therefore, the Forschungsgemeinschaft Urlaub und Reisen e.V. (FUR) published another update of the Trendstudy.