Greece is most popular destination for Germans
Summer bookings to Greece by German holidaymakers were 40 percent higher than a year ago by the end of January, helping the country overtake the Balearic islands as Germans’ most popular holiday destination, Doerte Nordbeck, head of Travel & Logistics Germany at German market researcher GfK, told journalists at a news conference on Wednesday, ahead of the world’s biggest travel fair in Berlin next week.
She cited booking data from travel agencies and online portals.
At the same time Germans’ summer bookings for Turkey have doubled, though are still far from the levels seen a few years ago, GfK said.
Tourists, a major source of financing for Turkey’s wide current account deficit, are starting to return to the country after attacks blamed on Islamic State and Kurdish militants and an attempted coup scared them away for a couple of years.
Bookings for Turkey from Germany for summer 2018 were up 101 percent at the end of January from a year ago, GfK data showed.
But the volume of bookings was still only about half of that for Greece, reversing the pattern seen a few years ago.
“But if we assume that nothing further happens to keep people away, then Turkey should return to former strength in a year or two,” Nordbeck noted.
[Reuters]
