RV's Slight Recovery in the European Market

Caravanning experiences a slight recovery in the European Market, yet is still far from normal activity. Despite the crisis, motorhomes are clear winners on the RV's market.

The European Caravan Federation (ECF) is expecting a slight upswing in new registrations of leisure vehicles when it produces its final results for 2011. This is largely attributable to recovery in the French market and strong expansion in Germany.

Different types of vehicles show different trends however. Whereas the European market showed 1.4% fewer new registrations for caravans, new registrations of motorcaravans increased by 8.9%.

With around 155,500 leisure vehicles, ECF’s initial predictions for 2011 suggest an increase of 3.3% in new registrations of all leisure vehicles in Europe.

There were just 81,000 new registrations for caravans in Europe, which corresponds to a slight drop of 1.4%.

Motorcaravans accounted for 74,500 new registrations, an increase of 8.9% over the previous year. There were regional variations too. France with 29,500 leisure vehicles and above all Germany with over 39,000 leisure vehicles are the driving force behind the steady growth for both types of vehicles in Europe.

Sweden (over 8,000 leisure vehicles), Norway (around 5,800 leisure vehicles) and Switzerland (over 4,300 leisure vehicles) have all registered strong growth as indeed have the small markets in Belgium, Austria and Slovenia. All other European countries have shown negative trends.

Source: ECF -.FICC