According to the latest annual market survey by the Association of German Language Holiday Tour Operators (Fachverband Deutscher Sprachreise-Veranstalter, or FDSV), English language tours are predominant among vacationers from Germany who take language tours. And among those who take English-speaking tours, the German travel trade publication, the UK is the favored destination. The latter probably has more to do with the proximity of the UK to Germany. The distance from London to Cologne, for example, is 367 miles—this less than the distance from Memphis to Knoxville, Tennessee (391 miles).
Almost two-thirds (64 percent) of Germans speak English. That’s 52 million people out of a population of 82 million. This makes Germany the sixth largest English-speaking country in the world, after the USA, India, Pakistan, Nigeria, the UK and the Philippines.† Some numbers from the FDSV survey report:
About 160,000 Germans went on a language holiday in 2014—a drop-off of 1.4 percent drop from 2013,
- The average length of a language holiday was 2.1 weeks
- The average cost of a 2014 language holiday was €1,308 ($1,422), an increase of 8.5 percent over 2013.
- Almost three out of five (not quite 59 percent) of these trips were made by young people of school age.
- 42 percent of such tours were made by teenagers (14-17), who comprise the largest market segment
- 17 percent of all trips were made by children aged 6-13.
- Despite the strength of the student and youth market, there was an increase in the number of adults going on language trips. Their share of the market increased by nearly 10 percentage points to a little more than 41 percent in 2014.
- About half of the adults were young adults (18-30), who represented 22.5 percent of all trips,
- The over 50 segment represented 6 percent of language holidays.
- English is the favored language, accounting for nearly 84 percent of all booked language holidays.
- About 90 percent of schoolchildren and 70 percent of adults went on an English language trip.
- The UK was the destination for every second-language holiday trip (53 percent) well ahead of Malta (14.6 percent). Other popular language holiday destinations were the USA, France, Spain, Ireland, Canada and Italy.
- There are about 140 companies and organizations in Germany offering language holidays, FDSV said, including some 70 professional tour operators.
For more reports and other information from Fachverband Deutscher Sprachreise-Veranstalter, visit: www.fdsv.de.
† http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_English-speaking_population
