Camping in Italy according to Uwe Frers, CEO of PiNCAMP

Uwe Frers, CEO of the German organization PiNCAMP – ADAC Camping attended the event dedicated to outdoor tourism organized by FAITA Federcamping that took place on April 27 in Cavallino-Treporti, in the province of Venice. After presenting ADAC Camping’s achievements in recent years – including reaching 7 million German campers thanks to the innovative PiNCAMP app – Frers focused on the favorable conditions affecting camping in Italy in the near future.

Below is the content of his speech:

ADAC was born about 70 years ago, in 1954, with the classification of campsites and the publication of the ADAC Campingfurher, a kind of Bible for the camping industry. A few years later, in 2005, the Internet became important to ADAC and we started our first Internet pages. These reach 15 million campers in Germany. In 2012, the app was launched: 3 million people use ADAC’s product to learn about campsites in Germany and Europe. A little later, in 2018, ADAC decided to invest heavily, that is, a double-digit investment, to become the market leader in the digital sector. Thus, the decision was made to create PiNCAMP, ADAC’s camping portal. Well, by next year we expect to reach 7 million unique campers. This is a huge number of campers, almost everyone who camps in Germany uses ADAC products. So we are very proud to be the market leader in Germany.

Let’s talk about the driving factors of the camping industry. The first is the growth and demand coming from the German market. Let me give you some numbers from 2013 to the present. In the past eight years, the number of new camping vehicles registered has increased by about 160 percent. Last year 107,000 new camping vehicles were registered in Germany, an incredible amount of vehicles. You can see the comparison with other countries: so Germany is way ahead, we are really driving this market growth.

If you look at absolute numbers, there are 1.5 million cars with families camping in Germany. So this is a real driver for the European market: these registered cars are really moving the market forward. But the most important thing is not only the existing situation, but the idea of how it will continue into the future.

For decades there has been a question in our most popular survey: what kind of location might you think of choosing as your next vacation? So, do you want to go on a cruise or go on a package tour? What might be relevant? Twelve percent of Germans, or nearly 10 million people, said that in the next two years camping might be their new type of vacation. People are strongly interested in this type of vacation.

There are two other relevant aspects. The first is that if we see the demand for Southern Europe, so the demand not for Germany, but for the service as Southern Europe, Italy is clearly in the lead in 2022. And I think this is a very positive sign after two years of COVID. And after really difficult times.

If we look at the question asked to German travelers, whether they are able to travel and whether they like to travel, we saw in 2019 a very good level, about 60 percent of people said, “I am able to travel because I have time and money.” And, in 2021 and 2020, because of the Coronavirus, the system really weakened. People were unable to travel because of legal restrictions. They didn’t have the time to do it and they weren’t interested in traveling abroad. But now the level of interest in 2022 travel is higher than ever.

I talked to some camping sites in Italy. And they all told me, “Hey, we’ve had a lot of Germans, so the Germans are back in southern Europe.” And that is an important message. The second message is about their expectations: more and more Germans expect luxury in their vacations. So it’s about quality. It’s about luxury products, and almost 20 percent (we’re talking about 19 percent of Germans) say, “If I take a trip, I expect a luxury vacation.” So it is important for a quality leader like Italy to invest further in this sector.

So to summarize, Germany has the largest number of camping vehicles, we are leading the market. After the Coronavirus, we are back in the field, and I am very proud of that. And the third point is certain: the desire for vacation has never been greater than it is today.

Let’s move on to the second driver, that of innovation and quality. If we take a look at the numbers of ADAC Superplatz, which is the high-end camping, five-star level, there is a super number that shows us that Italy is leading with ADAC Superplatz. Eight new campsites have been added in the last year, this is a new record. Congratulations to these eight new campsites; the level therefore is quite high.

But I would also point out that if we take a look at the growth in the country that is getting more super platforms, actually, Italy is not leading. My advice is to be careful, to continue to lead and to continue to invest in quality.

So in order to maintain the leadership of campsites in Europe, it is very important to maintain the highest standard in Italy, because others are investing a lot. We have to be careful to maintain the leadership in the future as well.

Let’s move on to the third driver: sustainability. I think the sustainability story has been told for decades, 20 years now. I would say that in the last two years we have seen tremendously hot summers. The year 2021 was the hottest summer ever measured. And if we look at Germany, in July 2021 we saw a catastrophic flood that killed 220 people, cost us 11 billion euros to restructure, and will take 10 years to recover. So, for the first time, Germans felt that climate change has come to Germany. And this is real news for Germans. This flood changed the October election in Germany from a conservative government to a new green and liberal government. And it also changed travel behavior.

Looking at these numbers, the attitude of German travelers to take a sustainable vacation jumped to 47 percent. So almost half of Germans answer, “If I go on vacation, I expect sustainability.” And certainly the supply and availability are there. That is why the attitude of campers is quite interesting.

If we ask the same question about sustainability to campers and non-campers, campers are more interested. I think this is not a surprise. They see it as a nature-focused vacation. Seeing the numbers, campers are even more interested in sustainability than regular people on vacation.

If we take a look at online searches for eco-friendly campsites that are close to the concept of sustainability, there has been a jump of more than 100 percent since 2017, so more and more people are looking for this important aspect in their vacations.

But if we look at campsites classified as eco-friendly or sustainable, only six countries have more than 10 percent of campsites labeled as eco-friendly. And even in this case, Italy is not leading the way. So from our point of view, we need to invest in sustainability for general reasons, but also for business reasons. Because if there is a demand for sustainability, people will pay for it. So the question is not only: how can we help the environment? The question is: how can we make money from it? So to summarize, sustainable desires are quite high in Germany, really high, and camping is at the center of this system. And I think it’s very important to invest; from my point of view, it’s also a political issue. We need support and less restrictions from a political point of view to do things right away.

Let’s move on to the fourth success factor: digitization. If you take a look at PiNCAMP, you look at how many people search for bookable campsites. In 2020 there was a huge turnout, about one-third of 29% looked for campsites with dates. This figure jumped to almost 44% in 2022. So within a year, it went up by 50%. And it will increase in the same way. This means that people are using a platform like PiNCAMP to find available campsites through descriptions, pictures, and reviews.

Why do people search online? Certainly it is a matter of time. It is a matter of comparison. Therefore, comparability and convenience is the most important issue. I don’t have to compare 20 different websites, I only need to have the information on one site.

Well, if we take a look at bookable campsites and make a comparison, for example, between Italy and Croatia, we can see that Italy has many more bookable campsites than Croatia, 330 compared to about 100, however, there are more campsites in Italy.

Thus, the percentage of bookable campsites in Italy is lower than in Croatia, so improvement is needed for Italy.

If you look at bookings from the German perspective, we see that they are almost twice as high as in Italy and Croatia. So we deliver more bookings to Croatia, because there is more supply on the platform. But in general, we sent more demand to Croatia; what are the biggest obstacles to digitization? This was a question addressed to travel professionals, the general managers of airlines or package tours. The most important thing is definitely cost and budget. First, you have to invest. But the next thing is the lack of qualified personnel. The problem is always the same: we don’t have people with digital training.

Digitization requires investment, which is a new demand for money, and it needs clear expertise. So we need more people to engage in this digital business. The trends for the future are again digitization and sustainability. There is a lot of competition out there. And I just advise Italy to step up, really step up. It is very important. And last but not least, from our point of view, politics should support, please, make things easier, make things simpler, support this sector, because I don’t think politicians understand how important the camping sector is for Italy.

For more information about PiNCAMP visit the brand page:
https://www.campingbusiness.eu/virtual-expo/adac-camping-gmbh/?lang=en