• 17th September 2020

Germany’s chance to shine

These past couple of weeks have been depressing for most Europeans, keen to squeeze in some kind of holiday before winter shutdown, whilst the weather is still warm and the evenings are relatively light. Quarantine has been slamming the door shut on increasing numbers of countries, taking more popular destinations such as France, Spain and some of the Greek Islands off the travel map.

As the number of ‘safe’ countries diminishes, travellers are increasingly looking for new ideas, and Germany has become an obvious choice: the nation’s virus levels remain low and its borders remain open.

So now is definitely Germany’s chance to shine. People who have never considered a Germany holiday before are looking to the media’s travel sections for guidance, as in my piece in last week’s Times.

It’s inexpensive, English-speaking, culturally rewarding, sometimes spectacular, and always reliable. Business connections mean that flights are not so vulnerable to sudden change as they would be to purely touristic destinations, and ticket prices are low; you can get a British Airways flight from London to Hamburg right now from £34 one way, around half of the normal fare.

Let’s hope that Germany’s tourism industry capitalises on this opportunity.  And that the travelling public strike out beyond the city centres – not many of which are great advertisements for the nation – and realise what they’ve been missing out on.