High rate of travel refusal in the West – great desire to travel in East Germany

The greater the travel experience, the less desire to travel? This formula apparently applies to Germans. Year after year, more than 22 million West Germans spend the best weeks of the year at home. A study by the BAT Leisure Research Institute has now investigated the reasons for this holiday fatigue. According to the study, 42 percent of West Germans "generally" no longer want to travel for their holidays. In contrast, the proportion of those refusing to travel is only half as high among citizens in the former East Germany. Just under one in five (19 %) wants to forgo holiday travel and thus their newly gained freedom to travel. This is one of the findings of two recent representative surveys conducted by the BAT Leisure Research Institute among 2,000 people aged 14 and over in West Germany and 1,000 people aged 14 and over in East Germany.

According to the BAT Institute, an increasing number of West Germans are reaching their psychological saturation point and losing their desire to travel, arguing: "You can also have a vacation at home." The more experienced generation between 50 and 64 years old, in particular, who have ample time and money to travel, no longer necessarily want to venture far afield: Almost half of all "young seniors" in West Germany (48 %) have lost their appetite for travel and maintain: "I generally don't travel on vacation anymore – and won't in the future either." In East Germany, the proportion of those refusing to travel in this age group is only 24 percent.

Younger people from the former East Germany, in particular, express a strong desire to travel and a pent-up demand for tourism in the future. They seem less bothered by mass tourism, while others are more concerned with the actual burdens of travel than the anticipated pleasures: inconveniences, strain, disappointments, environmental problems, and overcrowding on roads and beaches. Only among East and West Germans over the age of 65 do opinions align, although financial considerations certainly play a role here as well.

This should give the tourism industry, accustomed to growth, pause for thought. BAT Institute Director Prof. Dr. Horst W. Opaschowski: „If everyone wants everything at the same time, fewer and fewer people can be satisfied. The masses are satisfied with themselves. It seems that not the industry or the experts, but the vacationers themselves are solving the problem of mass tourism in their own way: they are refusing to travel.“ If more and more people eager to travel become those refusing to travel, the tourism industry will have time to reflect, and nature and the environment can hope for a respite.