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Germans take off for Asia this Easter

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LONDON, 7 March 2019: Hong Kong and China are more popular than ever for Germans intending to take a Easter break this year with bookings for the two destinations registering the highest growth rates.

Flight bookings are ahead of 2018, and increased seat capacity this summer could help sustain the trend, according to the latest findings from ForwardKeys, which predicts future travel patterns by analysing 17 million booking transactions a day.

Overall, intercontinental bookings from Germany are currently ahead 2.7% for the Easter holiday period, compared to last year.

Easter falls on Friday 19 April to Sunday 21 April with the traditional bank holiday on 22 April (UK), but the school holiday for Easter begins 5 April and ends 23 April.

According to ForwardKeys figures, Hong Kong bookings are showing a 31.4% jump compared with 2018, and China 30.9%. Other favoured destinations are the USA, ahead 20.6%, and Morocco, ahead 20.0%.

Although Thailand is not quite show the strongest booking growth, it does seem to be by far the most inspiring destination for a long-haul Easter holiday; as over 40% of all German online flight searches for travel to Asian destinations included Thailand.

This summer, the Asia Pacific region will benefit most from increased intercontinental scheduled seat capacity from Germany.

Between May and October, it’s up 4.1% for the region, which has a 5% market share. The total international capacity increase from Germany is 0.7% on last year.

Flight capacity to other European destinations, representing a 82% market share, is up 0.4%.

Intercontinental destinations with the largest growth in scheduled flight capacity from Germany between May and October, this year, are Qatar, up 18.2%; Thailand up 12.9% and Hong Kong up 10.0%.

The collapse of the German holiday airline, Germania, earlier this month (February), has had an impact on some destinations, but others are proving to be resilient.

Among those once served by Germania, but still showing capacity growth for this summer are Serbia up 5.9%; Egypt 0.2% and Turkey 7.3%.

ForwardKeys VP insights, Olivier Ponti commented: “Despite very serious turbulence in the German airline industry, it’s encouraging to see air capacity still growing overall, particularly as capacity increases are a sign of economic confidence. Over the Easter holidays, Hong Kong and China look set to do particularly well from German visitors.”

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