As soon as the new year has started, many people are already planning their holidays. After all, some employees have to plan their days off at the beginning of the year. If you take care of accommodation, flights and Co. early on, you definitely have some advantages.
Because especially in popular regions, holiday homes in particular can be sold out quickly. As the holiday home portal FeWo-direkt found out in a survey, 35 percent of Germans want to book the same accommodation as in the previous year. And this despite the fact that they used to always look for new domiciles. On average, repeat bookers are one and a half months earlier than people who decide to find new accommodation.
“In order not to go away empty-handed, many families start looking for suitable holiday accommodation early on,” says Wolfang Pagl, Director Vacation Rentals at FeWo-direkt. The pandemic years have shown that early bookers can choose from a much larger range. This would give them a much better chance of “finding a holiday home with the desired equipment and a good price-performance ratio,” Pagl continues.
If you want to have more accommodations to choose from, you should keep a few dates in mind. According to another FeWo-direkt analysis, bookings of holiday homes and holiday apartments for the Easter holidays should be made before February 20, 2023. For the Pentecost holidays before March 16th, the summer holidays before April 26th, the autumn holidays before July 24th and the Christmas holidays before October 27th. But these are only guidelines. At the end of February last year, only 35 percent of the accommodations for July on the Balearic Islands were still available. Similarly in popular holiday regions in Germany: In Schleswig-Holstein only 30 percent were free. As early as January 2023, FeWo-direkt only had around half of the accommodations available for these two destinations for the coming July.
However, if you don’t want to decide where your holiday will go this year, you can find something with a shorter lead time. Because according to Pagl, the long advance booking period applies above all to travel destinations that are in high demand, such as the German North Sea or the Baltic Sea. The booking situation on the mainland is becoming more and more relaxed. That means: be open to alternatives! For example, according to FeWo-direkt, the booking situation in the Dithmarschen district for July was even better in January than in the North Friesland district. The same applies in Spain. If you can do without the Balearic Islands, you should look around in the province of Barcelona, for example. According to the portal, significantly more accommodation was available there than in Mallorca, Ibiza and Menorca, although the beach and Mediterranean Sea are attractive in both regions.
However, early bookers should keep a few points in mind. So it is worth paying attention to flexible cancellation conditions. This allows you to change your mind at the last moment, should something come up. If you still book later, you are advised not to use too many filter options on the portals. Does it really have to be a pool, baby cot, iron and washing machine? If you make fewer specifications, you are more likely to find good offers in the end.
