Camping has been booming not only since Corona, but 2020 has given the industry an unprecedented boost. For example, according to the CIVD (Caravaning Industrie Verband), more recreational vehicles were newly registered in the first half of the year as in the whole of 2019.
The German campsite operators also experienced a rush of bookings after the first easing of restrictions in May and received so many enquiries that they could have booked pitches ten or a hundred times. And while in March and April the camper rentals were still overrun by a wave of cancellations, the telephone suddenly didn't stopp ringing for weeks afterwards. There were especially many camping newcomers who tested the open-air holiday for the first time. One thing is clear: the camping industry is one of the absolute winners of the Corona crisis.
The reasons are obvious: camping was one of the safest ways to travel this summer! The arrival is individual, sleeping and eating is done in your own vehicle or tent, social distancing is no problem and fresh air is included.
But according to the CIVD, there is another explanation for the growing popularity: the Millennials, i.e. the mid-20s to mid-30s, have re- or discovered the form of travel for themselves in recent years. Young urban families and couples in particular are interested in camping - also or primarily because of the image change from the bourgeois cliché to the near-natural holiday form. Those who want to go even further are talking about "van life" - whose hashtag has already been assigned 8.5 million times on the Instagram platform alone.
And as we know from personal experience: once you're infected with the camping virus, you often stick with it. This gives us hope that the trend will continue even longer than the pandemic.