Europe's summer abroad cancelled as staycation bookings soar

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10/02/2021 07:00

By Padraic Halpin, Sarah Young and Simon Johnson
    CONNEMARA, Ireland, Feb 10 (Reuters) - Up until late January
Terry O'Toole was fielding a trickle of enquiries from Irish
holidaymakers happy to settle for another summer at home in one
of the cottages he manages in the scenic west coast region of
Connemara.
    But when a government minister said on radio that it was
very unlikely Irish people will be able to go on foreign
holidays this summer, "the trickle became a torrent".
    From Connemara cottages to Berlin houseboats, Sweden's ski
slopes to UK activity parks, holiday accommodation is being
snapped up by cautious domestic tourists already resigned to
another staycation summer, amid fears of foreign travel bans and
quarantines.
     Availability is very tight, said O'Toole, the managing
director of Love Connemara Cottages.
    "Like last year... you have the entire Irish market trying
to squeeze into only a set amount of bookings."
     People still want to holiday and they're forced to stay in
Ireland, he said, something that makes for a slightly begrudging
clientele who would usually be off in the sun.
     O'Toole expects 80% to 90% of Love Connemara's 100 holiday
homes to be fully booked for July and August within the month.
When COVID-19 restrictions were lifted in the same period last
year, he could have rented each property three times over.
    Holiday home owners across Ireland are reporting similarly
strong demand thanks to "a sea change in people's expectations",
said Jacinta Doolan of the Irish Self Catering Federation. "They
just want a change of scenery," she said.
    It is the same story in the United Kingdom, although its
faster vaccine rollout will likely give operators a longer
season with bookings looking good, especially after May,
according to Martin Sach, head of The Holiday Home Association.
    Center Parcs, the holiday park operator whose sites offer
activities from horse-riding to painting, said bookings for May
onwards were very strong with a rise in interest recently.
    With self-catering accommodation perceived by some as a
safer way to vacation, Airbnb's UK office said that in the last
week of January searches for summer staycations on its website
more than doubled compared to the same time last year. 
    Domestic searches in Ireland quadrupled last week compared
to the first few weeks of January, Airbnb said.
    With beach resorts in Spain and Greece possibly shut to some
foreign tourists, the remote peninsula of Cornwall in the
south-west tip of England is anticipating huge demand in 2021.
    Renowned for its sandy beaches and old-fashioned fishing
villages, bookings for summer accommodation are 50% to 100% up
on where they would normally be at this point, said Malcolm
Bell, the chief executive of Visit Cornwall, the tourist board. 
    "Your home, which was your sanctuary, is now your workplace,
your classroom and your open prison," said Bell. Like O'Toole he
noticed some domestic tourists booking much longer stays than
they would have pre-pandemic.
        
    BUMPER SUMMER
    The staycation trend spells a second lost summer for
Europe's hard-hit airlines. With little idea of what to expect,
scheduling for the main holiday season is a guessing game for
carriers.  urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL8N2K74OX
    But other companies are benefiting from the shift in holiday
plans. For Sweden's XXL  XXLA.OL , the Nordic region's biggest
sporting goods retailer, the boom in trips to the local
countryside has led to a rapid recovery after the mild winter a
year ago forced it to sell off stock.  
    It managed to turn an operating loss of 153 million NOK ($18
million) in 2019 into a profit of 364 million in 2020.
    Swedes have also rushed to buy summer houses in anticipation
of having a "hemester" (staycation).
    "Sommerstugor" (summerhouse) prices were up 12% in the
Nov-Jan period compared with a year earlier, outpacing the 7%
rise in the price of apartments, according to figures from
Maklarstatistik, an association of real estate agents.
    In Germany, the unpredictability of the pandemic has made
the idea of holidaying on a house boat so attractive that
Europe's biggest rental company, Le Boat, is busy building more
canal boats to meet demand.
    With bookings up 60% last month, Le Boat is increasing its
German fleet by almost 20%, partly by shifting boats from France
to Germany.
    "I believe there will be a boom in the summer," Germany's
tourism tsar Thomas Bareiss told Reuters, as COVID-19
restrictions are eased. 
    Although 2021 "will still be a year of crisis" he said,
holiday companies will at least be able to make up for some of
their winter and spring losses, with state aid helping avert a
wave of insolvencies in the sector.
    In Cornwall, tourist boss Bell estimates that it will take
two-and-a-half to three years - and not just a bumper summer -
for the sector to recover to pre-pandemic levels.
    In Connemara meanwhile, with July and August "selling
themselves", O'Toole is banking on a strong second half and some
brave early holidaymakers to eke out a profit.
    "April and May would be the dream, but if we got June on top
of July and August, we'd be happy," he said.
    ($1 = 8.4973 Norwegian crowns)

 (Reporting Padraic Halpin in Dublin, Sarah Young in London,
Simon Johnson in Stockholm, Ilona Wissenbach and Maria Sheahan
in Berlin; writing by Padraic Halpin, editing by Alexandra
Hudson)
 ((padraic.halpin@thomsonreuters.com; +353 1 500 1504; Reuters
Messaging: padraic.halpin.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net))