The data compilation “Facts and Figures 2025,” recently published by the German Travel Association (DRV), provides a comprehensive overview of the travel industry’s development over the past year.

A look back at the year 2025 clearly shows that spending on travel and vacations has reached record levels, with package tours accounting for nearly half of all revenue; air travel is solidifying its position as the most popular mode of transportation; cruises are on the rise; and the share of long-distance travel is increasing:

·       German citizens spent a new record total of 87.9 billion euros on multi-day vacations booked in advance before departure.

·       Tour operators’ revenue reached 43.4 billion euros—up from 39.8 billion euros the previous year.

·       Package tours account for just under 50 percent of the total market.

·       Travel agencies generated 21 billion euros in revenue. Of this, 14.3 billion euros came from the private customer segment and 6.7 billion euros from business travel.

·       57.1 million travelers (previous year: 56.4 million) took a vacation lasting five days or more

·       The proportion of the population that travels has risen very slightly and now stands at 80.5 percent; the average trip duration has fallen slightly to 12.4 days (previous year: 13 days).

·       22.2 percent of long-haul vacation trips were to Germany (previous year: 23.6 percent); the share of long-distance travel rose from 6.9 percent to 8.6 percent.

·       47 percent of all vacation trips lasting five days or longer are taken by plane. Air travel has thus increased its share of the transportation market from 45 percent to nearly half.

·       Cruises continue to grow: Germans spent a total of around 6.7 billion euros on ocean and river cruises, an increase of eight percent over the previous year.

·       The most popular destination for ocean cruises was the North Sea, with a 37 percent share, followed by the western Mediterranean at 20 percent and the Atlantic, including the Canary Islands, Madeira, Cape Verde, the Azores, and Portugal, at 14 percent.

·       For river cruises, most guests traveled on the Rhine and its tributaries (44 percent), followed by the Danube (22 percent), rivers in France (14 percent), and the Nile (9 percent).