You can (still) pack your bags and go home!

We live in times of upheaval. Metro­po­litan areas are growing and becoming more densely popu­lated, rents and housing demand have since risen expo­nen­tially in many places, while the rural exodus in the pro­vinces is incre­asing, tra­di­tional and estab­lished struc­tures are partly dis­ap­pearing, or the expansion of modern infra­structure often con­tinues to sta­gnate. Or reversely, regions that were once unin­te­resting for tou­rists, such as the Uckermark, are incre­asingly being “dis­co­vered” around Berlin – and appar­ently to such an extent that even high-ranking media such as DIE ZEIT have mean­while started to take notice.  

Else­where, ever­green desti­na­tions such as Venice or Majorca are fed up with over­tourism that degrades the country and its people and are trying with spe­cific initia­tives to ward off the streams of tou­rists that descend on them like swarms of locusts via low-cost air­lines or cruise ships and just as sud­denly dis­appear again without leaving any added value worth men­tioning.

The pan­demic may have tem­po­r­arily put this on a back burner, but the pro­blems have not become any less intense as a result.

What does this have to do with us at HOLIDAYARCHITECTURE?

Many partner houses from our network are tra­di­tio­nally found in more rural areas. We believe that loca­tions which offer high-quality hos­pi­tality and archi­tecture are small, valuable steps towards future-ori­ented travel – for and with more fore­sight, cul­tural empathy and meaningfulness.

If – as in the above example of the Uckermark – con­trary points of view or even rejec­tions should in fact arise, we will attend to them (self-)critically and take con­crete action. This is because the effects of over­heating that have been observed for years (con­cerning pro­perty prices as well as tempers) and the unease in the travel industry (bucket lists, over­tourism, gen­tri­fi­cation) that already occurred before and inde­pendently of Covid 19 also give us cause for concern.

Holi­da­y­ar­chi­tecture pro­perties that are often in areas that have yet to be (re-) dis­co­vered and that could still cause exci­tement or are already doing so quietly and secretly, are of course no panacea against this. But also, they are cer­tainly small steps in the right direction.

Some of these for­gotten desti­na­tions have expe­ri­enced a certain “renais­sance” in the course of the pan­demic – albeit to a lesser extent than we had hoped for and encou­raged. In addition, during the pan­demic-related further shortage of holiday accom­mo­dation, many of our readers anti­ci­pated that houses and desti­na­tions in the “second tier” were much more pro­mising in terms of booking success, and above all were able to offer unex­pec­tedly positive holiday expe­ri­ences. Espe­cially in these areas, which are still under the radar of broader public per­ception, we are par­ti­cu­larly pleased to be able to present new holiday desti­na­tions again and again, which are not only archi­tec­tu­rally valuable, but also have the potential to reconcile resi­dents, guests, and nature alike.

What next?

Of course, well-built archi­tecture alone can of course neither stop the rural exodus (in one direction or another) nor bring about a tur­n­around in over­c­rowded hot­spots.

It does, however, help to mitigate such deve­lo­p­ments in certain areas – at least indi­rectly. And in com­bi­nation with a mindful hos­pi­tality, it can, in our view, very well point the way forward in order to create light­house pro­jects.

On this note, we would be pleased if you were to enjoy meaningful and authentic holiday expe­ri­ences at the “fringes of tourism” through our network and thereby dis­cover unknown places that – perhaps con­trary to initial assump­tions – inspire and enrich. And what’s more, by choosing them, you will have a very per­sonal influence on what happens in the (travel) world in the long term.

For our part, we promise to take an even closer and more careful look in the future when we select new partners and to pay even more attention to sus­taina­bility in all its facets.

“Though we travel the world over to find the beau­tiful, we must carry it with us, or we find it not.”

(Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays. First Series — 1841)

Text: Britta Krämer and Ulrich Stefan Knoll, November 2021

This article first appeared as an edi­torial in our book HOLIDAYARCHITECTURE 2019. Due to its con­ti­nuing rele­vance, our fin­dings were only added at the end of the 2nd Corona travel season.