New record expected on campsites in the north: The association is expecting five million guests this year.
The operators are currently dealing with one problem in particular.
Kiel - If you want to go on holiday to your chosen campsite in the land between the seas, it is not easy even outside of the high season.
By the end of this week, the places in all of Schleswig-Holstein are still very well booked, said the state chairman of the Association of the Camping Industry, Gert Petzold, the German press agency.
“Some are even 100 percent occupied.” This is particularly true of the hotspots on the North and Baltic Seas.
“We are assuming that this year we will have five million overnight stays by tourists for the first time,” said Petzold.
Six years ago it was 3.2 million.
The association has 134 facilities with a total of around 40,000 places.
In the course of the corona pandemic, camping holidays have increased even more than in previous years. By the end of July, the total of 267 open campsites in the country had 2.8 million overnight stays, an increase of 16.9 percent over the previous year. Meanwhile, all holiday accommodations with at least ten beds without camping recorded a decrease of 2.6 percent to 12.0 million overnight stays. For comparison: In the pre-Corona year 2019, camping accounted for 2.6 million of the 20.6 million total overnight stays up to the end of July. Its relative share has risen sharply since then.
“We are also very positive about the next year,” said Petzold. The industry today offers a wide range of leisure opportunities "that did not exist ten years ago". He named swimming pools, tennis courts, animation for children and adults. Offices on the campsites looked after guests, arranged day trips, boat trips, bus trips to Denmark. “The guests have different expectations today than they did ten years ago. Many have traveled a lot and compare our offers with those elsewhere. ”86 percent of the holidaymakers are German, many have come from North Rhine-Westphalia for a long time.
"We recommend booking your vacation in good time, but we also want to give our guests the opportunity to arrive spontaneously," said Petzold.
In view of the great interest, he sees opportunities to expand capacities primarily in the expansion of existing campsites, in harmony with nature and infrastructure.
"We tried to activate additional parking spaces adjacent to campsites, for example parking spaces."
The economics and interior ministries would have supported that, but the district administrations insisted on complex permits, said Petzold.
The association does not want to give up and at least find a solution for the months of July and August without great bureaucratic effort.
He relies on the backing of the government and the tourism association.
Economics Minister Bernd Buchholz (FDP) gives him hope: "Camping tourism was already in trend before Corona, but has really picked up speed again due to the pandemic." Guests valued tourism with little contact and close to nature.
The state reacted promptly to the high demand, allowing the capacity of existing campsites to be expanded and so-called small campsites to be tolerated.
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"We also heard that in individual cases a group of requirements overshot the target and called in the responsible ministry of the interior," said Buchholz.
That made the specifications more precise again.
"Because our common goal is and will remain an unbureaucratic solution to use the camping boom of the Corona year as an opportunity for Schleswig-Holstein tourism." Dpa
