study
The virus welds families together – even when traveling
Children in particular benefit from vacationing with the extended family.
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According to a study and the current demand for holiday homes, multigenerational vacations are trendy.
For more than a year, the corona pandemic has been changing the way people communicate with each other. From home office at work to homeschooling of the students to celebrations such as weddings or birthdays that are not allowed to be celebrated in larger groups: In order to prevent the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus and its mutants, people bring people up and down the country considerable sacrifice. However, a current YouGov study on behalf of the holiday home provider FeWo-direkt shows that family ties gain in importance again during times of crisis, including their effects on travel behavior.
Study confirms closer ties in times of crisis
More than a third of the 2,082 people questioned for the survey (37 percent) stated that they had had more intensive contact with family members than before thanks to the large number of digital channels. And not just in the core family: around one in three (30 percent) also has more contact with more distant relatives such as uncles and aunts, cousins and nephews and nieces. On the basis of this experience, 50 percent decide to want to keep closer contact with family members even after the pandemic.
For two thirds of the test subjects, vacationing together on a larger scale is therefore an option. FeWo-direkt also confirms that such multigenerational holidays are gaining popularity. Central Europe boss, Aye Helsig, is observing the trends carefully: "Large holiday homes with more than four bedrooms were already in greater demand on FeWo-direkt after the first lockdown between May and August 2020 than in the same period the year before."
Traveling with all your relatives?
For bestselling author and family expert Nora Imlau ("So much joy, so much anger"), the reasons for the changed perspective are obvious: "In our culture, the message is deeply anchored that family ties are the safest and most reliable, especially in times of crisis It is not for nothing that one often hears the sentence: blood is thicker than water. And indeed, family relationships are the anchor point in life for many people. "
This is also confirmed by the results of the YouGov survey: 37 percent of those questioned have been more concerned about the health of their relatives since the pandemic, and a quarter only realized through the pandemic that the family is the most important thing in their lives. That is why around two thirds of those surveyed (65 percent) could imagine going on vacation together with the rest of the family in the future.
Children benefit from contact with the extended family
For children in particular, spending time with the older generation of families is important for development, explains Imlau: "Knowing your own roots is a basic human need and helps children to find their own place in the world. In contact with aunts and uncles, grandparents , Cousins and cousins they go in search of similarities and differences, they approach and separate each other. This is very valuable for personal development. "