No end of record run in sight
This is called a rally on the stock exchange, but those involved tend to be speechless on the floor of the motorhome trade: The demand for holiday homes on wheels has reached unprecedented proportions during the Corona crisis. As early as November, the industry reached the record level of 100,000 leisure vehicles, i.e. mobile homes and caravans. The year 2020 is already seen as a milestone in the history of caravanning, the wave of success was not only triggered despite, but above all because of Corona. Despite its success, the industry is faced with a dilemma, and not just one.
While the carmakers groan and moan, move cautiously on thin ice because of the change in drive concepts and in individual cases have had to accept a drop in sales of up to 44 percent this year, the caravanning industry is running at full speed. The segment was the only one that did not show a minus sign in the registration statistics. With its IPO, the Knaus Tabbert Group raised fresh money in order to expand production capacity and advance the further development of the vehicles, the Hymer Group is becoming an almost autonomous manufacturer, at least in the meantime at least in the parent company no longer only superstructures on purchased chassis , but instead produced the chassis in-house.
Nevertheless, the providers face a dilemma. Many buyers are impatient and do not want to accept the increasingly longer delivery times. You have to wait up to 12 months for some models. There is a risk that customers in a hurry will use a competitor who can deliver faster. So if you want to take these businesses with you, you have to ramp up production. However, there have already been similar peaks in demand in the past, when the market collapses at some point, companies have their backs against the wall and mature into candidates for takeovers.
However, there is currently no cause for concern. Shortly after the Düsseldorf Caravan Salon in September, some brands said there was no need to worry about the coming year. The order books were already full at this point, the annual production for 2021 was sold. Even November, a month in which industry sales usually fall due to seasonal factors, was more successful than ever before. In the four weeks of late autumn, twice as many motorhomes were sold as in the same month of the previous year. There were 4523 units, which corresponds to an increase of 116.1 percent. In 2020, a total of 73,070 customers have received their brand-new motorhomes, an increase of 39.9 percent. The difference to the all-time record of over 100,000 vehicles is filled by the caravans.
The number of parking spaces is no longer sufficient
But there is another downside to the coin. Certainly, many newcomers will have taken a liking to caravanning as a holiday form, but the rapidly increasing number of hotels presents the accommodation facilities with immense difficulties. There are currently a little more than 3000 regular campsites in Germany, these offer around 224,000 plots for caravans or mobile homes. There are also around 4,300 motorhome parking spaces - with large differences in the number of parking spaces. These range from one or two parking spaces at the winemaker's or in front of the farm to professional holiday camps in particularly attractive tourist regions such as the Baltic Sea or Alpine foothills for more than 100 vehicles. Assuming an average of twelve parking spaces per motorhome camp, this results in a theoretical total of 275. 600 beds for motorhome drivers. Too little, everyone in Germany wanted to go on vacation at the same time. The industry association CIVD named 698,596 caravans and 589,355 mobile homes as of January 1, 2020, and as I said, there are now 100,000 more.
Whether the upswing in the caravanning industry will be sustained depends on the infrastructure for the campers, in particular on how the supply of overnight accommodations will develop. But also from the exhaust gas directives of the EU. Should the disproportionately stricter rules of the Euro 7 emissions standard come into force in 2025 in the proposed version, there would hardly be any possibility of pulling a caravan in compliance with the limits for new vehicles. And the Commission's decisions could also be painful for motorhomes with their fuel consumption of nine or more liters of diesel per 100 kilometers. The future is therefore not always bright. (ampnet / mk)
