Enlarge image
Photo: Hymer
It grows and grows and grows: the interest in caravans and mobile homes.
Around 740,000 caravans and 767,000 mobile homes are registered in Germany alone.
If you add cars that are also used as campers due to their conversions, and vehicles on permanent sites, there are around 1.8 million campers in use in Germany.
In view of this development, the manufacturers spread a lot of optimism at the world's largest trade fair, the Caravan Salon in Düsseldorf.
Concerns that campers' money may not be so easy in times of massively rising energy prices have not dominated so far.
Instead, the industry is celebrating that sales have recently continued to grow: last year, camping holidaymakers brought them revenues of 15 billion euros - one billion more than in the previous year, according to the German Economic Institute for Tourism at the University of Munich.
And there are many indications that this growth will continue for the time being - despite long delivery times, increased prices and some bottlenecks.
Trend towards electric drive
There are delivery problems with the Fiat Ducato, which has been used as the base vehicle by numerous motorhome manufacturers up to now.
Several new camper vans at the fair therefore use panel vans from other manufacturers, such as the Ford Transit.
The trend towards electric drives in smaller touring vehicles and camper vans is also clearly recognizable.
These include the Peugeot e-Rifter Vanderer, the Opel-based Crosscamp Zafira-e and various camping extensions for the Mercedes EQV.
An overview of the most important innovations of the »Caravan Salon« can be found here: