In the summer of 2022, we went on holiday abroad as much as before the corona crisis. We took the plane less often and went by train more often. Compared to 2019, holidaymakers stayed within Europe more often. Where did we go most often?
The figures come from the CBS Holiday Survey. This shows that the Dutch took 21.2 million holidays in the summer of 2022, 0.9 million more than in 2019, the year before the corona pandemic broke out.
Last year, 10.8 million Dutch people went on holiday at least once in the summer. In 2019 there were 10.7 million. In 2022, 56 percent of summer holidays had a foreign destination, about the same as in 2019.
And most of us went to… France. With nearly two million holidays, France was the most popular foreign holiday destination in the summer of 2022. This means that the country of wine and croissants has overtaken Germany (with 1.6 million summer holidays) as the most visited summer holiday country. In the summer of 2019, Germany attracted the most Dutch holidaymakers with 1.8 million.
This was reversed for Spain, Portugal and Turkey; these countries were less popular as a holiday destination in the summer of 2022. Turkey was still in the top 10 in 2019, with 381,000 summer holidays. Now Turkey is out of the top 10.
Top 10 summer holiday countries of 2022
Last year, more than 400,000 fewer summer holidays were spent outside Europe than in the year before the corona crisis. More than 10 percent of foreign summer holidays had a destination outside Europe; in 2019 this was 14 percent. The number of summer holidays to Asia in particular fell compared to 2019 and North America was also less popular. Still, most destinations outside Europe were still in Asia last summer, followed by North America and Africa. Latin America and the Caribbean close the list.
And how did we go?
The fact that people stayed closer to home in the summer is also reflected in the means of transport used for foreign holidays: there were fewer flights. In 2022, holidaymakers took the plane for 4.2 million summer holidays (35 percent). In 2019, the share of air travel was 45 percent.
The car was the preferred means of transportation. Almost half of the holidays went by car, compared to less than half three years earlier. We also took the train more often: in 2019 we went by train in 4 percent of foreign summer holidays, compared to 8 percent last year.
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