Reports

diversification, and the social, political to make a contribution to such a part- and cultural consequences that these nership. entail. What is needed to ensure that such unwelcome developments do not Tom Selwyn increase, with all their implications for Roehampton lnstitff te social and political conflict, is the Roehampton Lane establishment of a partnership be- London SW15 5PU. UK tween local people in areas subject to tourism developments and agencies such as the EC who are in a position to influence planning processes in these

‘E. de Kadt, Tourism. Passport to De-

areas. Anthropologists are well placed velopmenf? Oxford University Press, New York, 1976,

2North South: A Programme for Survival, Pan Books, London, 1980. 3J. Kincaid. A SmaN P/ace, Virago, Lon- don, 1988. 4G. Lee, ‘Tourism as a factor in develop- ment cooperation’, Tourism Management, Vol8, No 1, 1987, pp 2-l 9.

Note: Details of Europe’s only MA course in the Sociology and the Anthropoi~y of Tour- ism, run by the Roehampton Institute, can be obtained from Tom Selwyn at the above address.

East melts West - E~rop~‘s changing tourism With the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989, an enormous upsurge in

travel between the two Germanies occurred; simi~ardevelopments elsewhere in Europe are beginning to take place. The lnternationai Tourism Exchange (IT@, the world’s largest tourism fair held every spring in Berlin, this year devoted much of its pfogramme to a time/y investigation of the expected changes in Europe’s tourism. Professor Ejler Alkjaer, Consulting Professor to the Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, WA, USA, here reports on some of the prevailing expectations and on the results of a survey on the holiday plans of a representative sample of East Germans.

Eastern Europe is now open and attractive to a much greater degree than formerly. Until now only an insignificant share of all holiday travel from Western Europe reached East- ern European destinations. For in- stance, only 2% of Danish holi- daymakers headed towards Eastern Europe, and the same is roughly the case for other Western European countries. Everything indicates that this tiny figure will have multiplied by the end of 1990. This will be felt in the Western European home markets and it will hit the traditional Mediterra- nean destinations as well as London, Paris, Vienna, Copenhagen and other major cities.

The new eastbound tourist flows are by no means expected to be equally distributed over the former Eastern block. The GDR and Hungary will be the main destinations, followed by Poland and Czechoslovakia, with Romania, Bulgaria and the USSR in the last row (though a sizeabie in- crease is expected in the Baltic areas of the USSR.)

Forecasting these increased tourist

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flows exactly is, of course, not feasi- ble. There are also currently limits to the possibilities of growth, above all in hotel capacity. The recently appointed tourism minister of the GDR acknow- ledged at the ITB that his country is short of 85 000 hotel beds. There and in Eastern Europe as a whole the hotel capacity cannot be extended in just a few months. Quartering in private homes and on farms is under prepara- tion in all these countries and new camp sites are being prepared every- where. Further ahead a number of already finalized hotel projects will be realized. For example, the national airfines of East and West Germany, Interflug and Lufthansa respectively, have decided jointly to build a chain of hotels in the CDR.

Eastern Europe’s competitive posi- tion in the global tourism market will therefore be improved in rapid tempo. But what about flows in the opposite direction, ie from East to West? These will certainly increase, but they will be smaller and above all of minor econo- mic importance. You see it in Berlin today: the Eastberliner pours a spot of

low-octane petrol into the tank of his ‘Trabi’ (locally made car) and heads off to West Berlin for the joys of tourism (preferably free). This means sightseeing, visits to family and friends and, possibly, profiting from a few of the numerous offers of 50% or 75% reductions on tickets for the theatre, exhibitions and museums. (Apparent- ly even the prostitutes advertise re- duced prices for East German citizens!) The visitor from the GDR is more often than not short of money. This is the rule, and the exceptions are few.

First of its kind

At the ITB the results were presented of an inquiry among a representative section of East German citizens con- cerning their desires and plans for holiday trips in 1990. The interviews were carried out in January and February 1990 and the survey was conducted by professors Armin Godau and Giinther HHdrich of Dres- den and West Berlin respectively.

The main obsenarion was that the desire to travel is simply overwhelm- ing and that the optimism with a vieu to the practical possibilities is great. Until the fall of the wall on 10 Novem- ber 1989, East Germans were obliged to take their holidays either in their own country or in other Eastern-bloc countries. In this respect the latter will lose out this year - 83% of the population expect to make one-day excursions to non-socialist countries and 47% hope to have short holiday breaks (2-4 days) outside Eastern Europe. Finally, 62% assert that they will undertake holiday trips of five or more days to non-socialist countries.

TOURISM MANAGEMENT June 1990

(The reader should not add up these percentages; many have so much Wanderlust that they plan to carry out all these types of holiday abroad!)

Optimism v reality

So there is no lack of optimism. However, consideration of destina- tions, means of transport and over- night facilities bring some realism into the picture. The one-day excursionists will go almost exclusively to the FRG, the only non-socialist area bordering the GDR. Certain small contingents can reach Denmark or Sweden via ferries across the Baltic and some may also go via Schleswig-Holstein to cross the land frontier to Denmark.

Of the East Germans intending to have short holidays in non-socialist countries 89% choose the FRG. The remainder who prefer other countries are split as follows: France (4%), Austria (2%), Scandinavia and Italy (1% each) and other countries (2%).

The lion’s share of those who be- lieve in organizing vacations of five or more days’ duration will also go to the FRG (74%). The remaining 26% are distributed as follows: Austria (6%), France, Greece and the Scandinavian countries (3% each), Switzerland, Spain, Yugoslavia and Italy (2% each), The Netherlands (1%) and other countries 2%.

For short breaks in non-socialist countries the car is the preferred means of transport - 67% will use their own car, or will borrow one from family or friends. The bus will be used by 15%, the train by 2%, while most of the rest have not yet decided on their means of transport. For holidays of longer duration the transportation pattern is different: 46% will take the train, 41% go by car, 5% by air and 2% by bus.

Of the short-term holidaymakers 73% will stay in the homes of family or friends, 7% will hire private rooms, 5% be guests in hotels, pensions and inns, 4% will camp and 2% will stay at youth hostels. The longer holidays (five days or more) will also be spent with family or friends for preference (64%). Next in popularity come camp- ing sites (lo%), while 8% will hire private rooms and 7% stay in hotels,

pensions or inns. The rest will either stay at other inexpensive facilities or have not yet made arrangements.

All this information implies that the East Germans surveyed are travelling on a tight budget - but do they know how to estimate costs in the West? In the main, no. They were asked whether they could indicate how much they would spend on their trip - travel, board, food and sundry ex- penses. Over half (53%) confessed to having no idea of the costs, 40% believed they had a rough idea, while 7% asserted that they had calculated their costs accurately. Those who do have some idea of their costs would on average spend 610 Ostmarks per per- son. The vast majority (82%) would spend less than 1000 Ostmarks, 12% from 1000 to 2000 and 4% over 2000 Ostmarks. (Fears that a changed ex- change rate of IDM to 3 Ostmarks, after years of - artificial - parity, would eat further into East Germans’ travel budgets seem to have been alleviated by a return to parity.)

If the average East German traveller were spending an average of 610 Marks in non-socialist countries, his or her total budget for five days or more, including travel to and from the destination, would be equivalent to around E220. East Germans will not, therefore, be staying in first-class hotels in the Western European cities and resorts, where this sum would cover one night only. They will have to dig up what family and friends they may have, hire private rooms, live in tents or find other inexpensive facili- ties.

If we turn the percentages above into concrete figures, the outcome is some 1 500 000 to 2 000 000 holidays

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of five days or longer. This is a large number compared with the negligible number of holidays taken before the fall of the wall. but it is still small in proportion to the numbers of other nationalities vacationing in Western Europe. Since the number of adults in the age and income bracket to take a holiday in the GDR is estimated at 11 million, the ‘travel intensity’ of the population (its travelling inhabitants) is some I-t-IS%. This oprirnir;tic figure is equal only to about a third of the realistic travel intensities as recorded for the Scandinavians. And again it should be borne in mind that the bulk of East German travellers are obliged to use humble means of transport, lodging, food etc.

New vista

All this, however, is related to the current year only. In the long term a GDR reunited with the FRG will grow into a big and fertile tourism market not only for Western Europe but for the whole world. The new German federation will comprise 80 million inhabitants - including eager, high spending travellers - as against 60 million today. To a somewhat lesser degree the same will apply to the rest of Eastern Europe as time goes on. Gradually the standard of living there is likely to approach the Western level.

Ejler Alkjaer 12 A Nyvej

DK- 1851 Frederiksberg C Denmark

‘fl =2.75 OstmarWOM.

Reprints of all articles in this journal are available in quantities of 100 or more. For full details of price and availability, please write to: The Reprint Department, Butterworth-Heinemann Ltd, PO Box 63, Westbury House, Bury Street, Guildford, Surrey GU2 5BH, UK (Tel: 0483-300966).

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