Dispute over summer vacation: NRW wants cheaper trips in September!

Dispute over summer vacation: NRW wants cheaper trips in September!

In Germany, there is currently a hot discussion about the summer vacation. North Rhine-Westphalia's School Minister Dorothee Feller (FDP) has expressed the wish to adapt the summer holidays to the Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg model in order to benefit from cheaper travel prices in September. These two federal states have the latest holidays that last until September, but Feller considers this special path to be no longer up to date.

The summer vacation starts staggered to federal states to avoid a simultaneous journey of too many vacationers. Only 14 federal states are currently participating in a rotation of the holiday dates. This dates are determined in the Conference of Ministers of Education (KMK) in accordance with the "national agreement on the common basic structure of the school system". This should take the holidays between June 20 and September 15th, which includes a total of 88 days.

FerienteMine and their effects

The current holiday dates are set by 2030, but the full range of the time available is often not used in many countries. This year the summer vacation in Saxony, Thuringia and Saxony-Anhalt began on June 28th. The holiday corridor will even begin on June 29 next year. Teacher representatives argue that earlier holidays in 2025 in particular had preserved children from heat in classrooms.

The discussion about future holiday dates from 2031 has not yet started. While Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg exist on their traditional holiday rhythm, other federal states have supported Feller's concerns. Bavaria's Prime Minister Markus Söder (CSU) made it clear that the current holiday flow is deeply anchored in Bavarian culture. In addition to the criticism of the late Ferienterminen, reference is also made to the longer Pentecost holidays of these two federal states.

criticism from the tourism industry

The close staggering of the holiday has also called on the tourism industry. DTV President Reinhard Meyer calls for a holiday corridor of at least 90 days. The demand for a solidarity planning between the federal states is of great importance. An exception is 2029, in which the holidays in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania begin before the start of the calendar summer, which results in a holiday corridor of 87 days.

Christoph Ploß, CDU tourism coordinator, supports the demand for more flexibility to equalize the holidays. The assessment of a spokesman for TUI underlines that vacationers who travel towards the end of the summer holidays tend to receive cheaper prices. However, these late holidays in Bavaria can mean that the main season is already over in many other holiday countries, which requires flexible travel planning.