During the winter season of 2016, the Dutch went 866 thousand times on a winter sports holiday. This is a decline of 30 thousand holidays in comparison to 2015. According to the statistics of the CBS – the Bureau of the Statistics in the Netherlands – winter sports holidays overall are losing in popularity. The graphic below shows the decline over the last ten years. The 2017 figures will become available later this year.
Winter sports destinations
Austria is still the most popular destination for the Dutch. Almost 60% of the booked winter sports holidays are to Austria. In 2016, 515 thousand winter sports holidays were spent in Austria, in 2017 this was 476 thousand. France takes second place with 17% and Germany ranks third with 8%
Winter sports holidays are expensive and short
The average duration of winter sports holiday is 8,6 days. In comparison to a normal holiday, which is 12,9 days average, a winter sports holiday is short but very expensive. The daily cost of an average winter sport holiday is 83 euro per person per day, the average expenditure of a summer holiday is 68 euro per person per day, that’s a difference of 15 euros. Which is a lot for a long holiday with the family.
Most of the Dutch do not book holidays themselves but use an intermediary. Also, more than 84% of the Dutch are going on winter sports by car. The remainder is going by bus (7%) or go by airplane (7%).
Activities during the winter sports holiday
The main reason for most Dutch to go on a winter sports holiday is to go skiing. However, walking and ‘cross country skiing’ are becoming more popular year by year while skiing is losing slightly in popularity. The younger ones are going for the snowboard while the older ones (55+) take it to a slower level and go for a walking trail or cross country.
It’s an interesting market, with a good strategy
The Dutch winter sports market is still an interesting market for destinations and touroperators. However, the number of holidays isn’t growing so this asks for a good strategy to reach the Dutch market and make sure that the Dutch tourists choose for your destination.
The key word is PR and PRomotion! You need to promote your destination more so as to ‘steal’ more visitors from your competition. It is as simple as that. Getting the same number – or even better – more tourists to your region means you have to convince winter sports lovers who visit the same ski resort year in year out to try and experience a new destination: yours.
Baltus Communications is organising the Winter Sport Media Event which is the perfect opportunity for you to promote your destination or company to Dutch travel & lifestyle media.
For more information about this event please click on the winter sports button below
