Entire musical careers are based on the idea that people fill highways, trains and planes in the days before Christmas: “Driving home for Christmas”, “There’s no place like home for Christmas”, “Please come home for Christmas”, the list of so-called Christmas classics with a longing for home and close relatives could be extended indefinitely. At the latest, the grief over separated families in the pandemic gave the impression: Being very cramped with a lot of food with a lot of people in one room makes you happy.
Were it not the payment, which the travel search engine Kayak has now published: Proportionately, there were twice as many searches for single rooms on the platform for December 19 to 27 as in 2021. Compared to 2019, six times as many inquiries were about single accommodation. However, the creators of the statistics say: These searches do not come from people returning home. Travel options to Timmerhorn or Esslingen were not sought, but Bangkok, Istanbul, New York were the most popular destinations. Also striking: On the list of the ten most popular destinations, Palma de Mallorca is the closest – still 1794 kilometers away from the geographical center of Germany. All other destinations are further away – from Germany, from relatives.
Now what do these numbers say? A first, obvious thesis: Either people have found out how much they like being alone after they have spent a lot of time with their nuclear family. However, the number of divorces is falling. The second explanation: Many would always prefer to be alone on holidays, this year they have a better excuse – because “you can finally travel again”.
Better sun and sand then
It is most likely that the Internet, as is so often the case, is more of a projection screen than a place of actual action. The platform’s statistics record searches, not bookings. And just as searches for the life partners of pretty Hollywood people are frequent (maybe he or she is still available?) and Instagram works because you briefly imagine what it would be like to live in a van in Greece, they show Single room searches one thing above all: mental escapism. Everyone wants to get away, not just from their families, but from the crisis and the news of catastrophes. The desire to lie on a Thai beach should be inversely proportional to the number of fairy lights and the amount of snow: less electricity and rain instead of white flakes? Better sun and sand then.
The Federal Association of the German Hotel and Restaurant Industry also doubts that there will be a lot of spending in hotels. He announced that every third hotel and restaurant owner has had very bad bookings for the holidays so far. So maybe some hoteliers and innkeepers are simply hoping to lure guests with practical arguments when they are currently playing another Christmas classic. “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” is playing in countless lobbies and pubs, a song intended to convince a lady to stay inside on a Christmassy evening. The 1944 song sounds nice, but it has an awkward connotation these days. It says, “Think of my life-long sorrow, if you got pneumonia and died.” Now getting sick inside and outside is problematic these days, when traveling anyway, actually there is only one solution. Stay at home, namely: alone.