About 1.8m ready for Xmas vacation; more staying in NL

About 1.8 million Dutch people will go on holiday over the Christmas period this year. This is about the same as last year. This year slightly more vacationers choose to stay in the Netherlands. That is the expectation of the Netherlands Bureau of Tourism & Conventions (NBTC Holland Marketing). According to their estimation, approximately 950 thousand Dutch people opted for a destination within the country, 50 thousand more than last year. The number of holidays abroad decreased by about 50 thousand to about 850 thousand. According to the tourism bureau, the Christmas holidays remain a popular time to get away. The Dutch bungalow parks especially benefit from this. They see an increase in the number of bookings for the Christmas holiday compared to last year. More than half of the domestic vacations are spent in a holiday cottage or bungalow. About a quarter of Dutch people opt for a hotel. Germany remains the most popular destination for a holiday abroad, with about a quarter visiting that country. Austria, Belgium and France are also popular Christmas holiday destinations.