Umweltbundesamt
Click to enlargeThe travel areas in Germany have been aggregated in five wider tourism areas. The ‘Alps, alpine foothills’, ‘Coasts’, as well as ‘Urban areas’ are characterised by highly specific features, whereas the ‘Uplands’ and ‘Other areas’ are heterogeneous and extensive.
2023 Monitoring Report on the German Strategy for Adaptation to Climate Change
It has so far not been possible to discern any influence of climatic change on the market shares of wider tourism areas in respect of occupancy rates. Up until 2019 developments were characterised by the increasing importance of urban areas at the expense of other areas. During the Covid-19 years of 2020 and 2021, the general decline of occupancy rates affected, above all, the urban areas while the wider tourism areas on coasts and in the Alps were able to gain market share.
Apart from coastal areas by the North Sea and Baltic Sea or the Alps with alpine foothills, there are other travel destinations in Germany which have been aggregated to form three other wider tourism areas207: the uplands, urban-type areas and other areas (for spatial distribution cf. map on page 283). The wider tourism areas are characterised not only by different features in terms of wildlife, landscape and land use, but also by different levels of importance and intensity of tourism in their respective areas. Individual types of tourism in the wider tourism areas are – apart from landscape features – very closely bound up with certain climatic conditions such as bathing tourism on the coasts or winter tourism in the Alps and uplands. The connection is less pronounced in respect of other types of tourism such as city tourism, shopping and congress tourism or the hiking and cycling types of tourism; nevertheless, it does exist. Any changes in these conditions as a function of progressive climate change can influence the attractiveness of tourism in such wider areas either negatively or positively. Apart from climate change, this influence depends on the degree in which intensely climate-sensitive types of tourism characterise the demand, and how diverse the touristic offers are in the wider area concerned.
As far as summer tourism is concerned, rising temperatures and less precipitation can generally increase the attractiveness of tourism areas in Germany, for instance in respect of outdoor activities such as hiking, cycling or boat tours. Likewise, the bathing season – on the coasts of North Sea and Baltic Sea (cf. Indicator TOU-I-1) and at inland water bodies from Lake Constance to the Mecklenburg Lakeland – can become much longer owing to rising water temperatures. However, higher water temperatures are also apt to affect water quality, potentially favouring the rather negatively viewed growth of algae or cyanobacteria (cf. Indicators GE-I-6). In coastal areas, it can happen that more frequent storms and rising sea levels alter the coastlines and beaches or cause erosion thus affecting tourism activities (cf. Indicator KM-I-4), while in urban-type areas, summer heatwaves can equally affect the demand for city vacations. Winter tourism areas in the Alps and uplands are apt to lose some of their attractiveness during the winter season as snow cover and the certainty of snow diminish which means the areas concerned can no longer provide a wintry landscape aesthetic or the usual winter sports activities (cf. Indicator TOU-I-2). On the plus side, autumns become longer and warmer thus increasing the potential for the short-break types of holidays in Germany.208 In addition to impacts from changing average weather conditions and weather patterns, climate change can also entail the occurrence of more frequent and more intensive extreme weather events affecting Germany’s travel areas. For example, in recent years tourism offers and destinations in various parts of Germany were affected not only by storms, heavy rain and flooding but also by heatwaves, forest fires and water shortages.
Any changes in the attractiveness of wider tourism areas – owing to gradual or acute climate change impacts – can in turn affect market shares. Against this background, the indicator for wider tourism areas entitled ‘Alps with alpine foothills’, ‘Coasts’, ‘Uplands’, ‘Urban-type areas’ as well as ‘Other areas’ illustrates the development of market share in terms of occupancy rates in accommodation businesses nationwide. The indicator thus provides an easily comparable overview of the development of travel demand in the areas concerned.
The development of market shares in the period from 2006 to 2019 is characterised – with a strong overall increase in Germany from roughly 350 to 500 million bed-nights – by a significantly rising market share in urban areas at the expense of other areas, in particular the uplands and other areas. In 2020 and 2021, this development was disrupted – to various degrees within Germany – by travel restrictions and travel warnings issued by the German Foreign Office during the Covid-19 pandemic. These restrictions entailed that Germany’s population overall undertook distinctly less holiday travel and if they travelled at all, they only visited domestic destinations. Moreover, the number of bed-nights from foreign visitors – amounting to some 90 million in 2019 – decreased to 32 million visitors in 2020.209 Overall in Germany, the demand dropped to roughly 300 million bed-nights, in other words it fell distinctly below the level recorded in 2006. This decline generally affected all wider tourism areas, but in particular the urban-type areas where – owing to travel restrictions – there were hardly any international visitors, while trade fairs and other events just could not be held. In this field, bed-nights declined by almost 60 %. The decline was lowest in the wider coastal tourism areas amounting to -20 %. Evidently, the destinations on North Sea and Baltic Sea coasts benefited from the widespread German predilection for beach vacations.
The development described above makes it clear that the indicator generally illustrates shifts in the popularity of wider tourism areas in Germany – such as the long-lasting trend favouring city vacations or the changes arising during the Covid-19 pandemic. However, the indicator so far does not reflect any recognisable influence of climatic changes on the market shares of wider tourism areas in terms of occupancy rates.
207 - Institut für Länderkunde Leipzig 2000, abgebildet in: DTV – Deutscher Tourismusverband e.V. (Hg.) 2002: 100 Jahre DTV – Die Entwicklung des Tourismus in Deutschland 1902–2002.
208 - UBA – Umweltbundesamt, BMU – Bundesministerium für Umwelt, Naturschutz und nukleare Sicherheit (Hg.) 2020: Anpassung an den Klimawandel: Die Zukunft im Tourismus gestalten. Handlungsleitfaden. https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/sites/default/files/medien/376/publikationen/anpassung_an_den_klimawandel_die_zukunft_im_tourismus_gestalten_barrierefrei_v2.pdf
209 - DZT – Deutsche Zentrale für Tourismus e.V. (Hg.): Zahlen, Daten, Fakten 2021. Frankfurt/Main, 25 pp. https://www.germany.travel/media/redaktion/trade_relaunch/business_intelligence/dzt_marktforschung/2022_1/dzt_zahlenflyer_feb2022_de_la085068_1390400.pdf
The UBA’s motto, For our environment (“Für Mensch und Umwelt”), sums up our mission pretty well, we feel. In this video we give an insight into our work.
