With the start of holidays in several federal states, it became crowded in German seaside resorts. The beaches were swarming with sun-hungry people. Those who wanted to get a beach chair in the popular places on the Bay of Lübeck usually had the sign: “Occupied”.
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The summer holidays have already started in Hamburg, Berlin, Brandenburg and Mecklenburg-West Pomerania. It also starts in Schleswig-Holstein and North Rhine-Westphalia. The first big wave of travel in summer is expected, the ADAC anticipates long traffic jams on the highways.
A lot of traffic can be expected, especially on the classic tourist routes A3, A7, A8 and A9, a spokeswoman said on Friday. Traffic jams would also be expected on the A1 and A7 northbound. “In addition, there are currently around 750 construction sites.” On Friday it was already jammed on the highways in the north. There was a lot of traffic on the A1 towards Lübeck and on the A7 near Hamburg.
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Because of the corona crisis, more Germans are going on vacation in their own country than usual this year. In order to prevent too much crowding on the beaches, the Baltic Sea resorts of Scharbeutz, Sierksdorf, Neustadt, Pelzerhaken and Rettin, for example, have developed a website on which daytime tourists should soon be able to find out about the space available on the beaches.
In addition, the beach chairs must be spaced 3.25 meters apart, which in some cases means that not as many beach chairs can be rented. He now has about 30 percent fewer beach chairs, says landlord Peter Voß in Timmendorfer Strand. Beach chair landlord Katja König, on the other hand, was able to create additional space: “I always had a playground area, which I have now given up.”
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Rocking summer with short periods of heat?
Schleswig-Holstein’s Prime Minister Daniel Günther got an idea of the situation in Timmendorfer Strand. “From a distance, the beach looks very crowded, but if you look closer, you can see that the majority of people keep the necessary distances,” said the CDU politician.
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The weather is now likely to get worse. “It will be more volatile again, even with thunderstorms, before the temperatures rise again,” said the German Weather Service about expectations from the weekend to the middle of the week. This could be an indication of an upcoming “swing summer”, in which short heat phases alternate with unstable summer days.
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The holiday resorts on the North and Baltic Seas consistently report a very good booking situation. “With us, the quarters are almost fully booked. The pre-bookings for summer 2020 were already very good even before the corona pandemic, so that only a few short-term travelers were added,” said the spokeswoman for Tourism Service Grömitz, Jacqueline Felsmann. Many of the beds on the North Sea coast are also fully booked. “We have probably had the strongest June in recent years, and in the coming week we will leave the 90 percent mark in occupancy and occupancy behind,” said Olaf Raffel from Büsumer Tourismus Marketing Service TMS.
Fear a second lockdown in the tourism industry
The beaches also fill in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. “It is already quite full, but now the most intensive times are coming,” said the managing director of the state tourism association, Tobias Woitendorf. During the summer vacation season in Germany until mid-September, he expects around four million overnight guests in the country.
In Lower Saxony, the tourism association warned guests and hosts against too much relaxation. “If distance or hygiene rules are not complied with, then we get a bang,” said the chairman of the Lower Saxony Tourist Association, Sven Ambrosy. The worst thing that could happen to the tourism industry would be a corona lockdown due to increased infection rates.
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