Bielefeld (dpa / lnw) - For the youth hostels in North Rhine-Westphalia, the pandemic lull has been overcome. Above all, the "comeback of class trips" in 2022 contributed to a positive development with a sharp increase in the number of overnight stays - this applies across Germany as well as in the most populous federal state, the German Youth Hostel Association (DJH) reported on Tuesday in Bielefeld.
The state associations of Rhineland and Westphalia-Lippe counted more than 1.5 million overnight stays for NRW 2022 - in the crisis year 2021 there were only a good 596,000 overnight stays. There are only a few people leaving the club, but many new members - and that means that NRW is also in line with the national trend here.
For both state associations, school classes are the most important guest group - with rapid growth. In the Rhineland, the number of overnight stays in 2022 was 6.7 percent higher than in the pre-Corona year 2019. And in Westphalia-Lippe, the catch-up effect after two years of the pandemic was so noticeable that there was even the highest value of the past 15 for school trips years was measured.
