• After a year and a half of health crisis and three confinements, 35 million French people have planned to go on vacation this summer.

  • Back to nature, “staycation”, teleworking from a resort, but also a sometimes lower budget than before the crisis ... The Covid has imposed its mark on our holidays.

  • “20 Minutes” portrays the various trends regarding vacations in a world that is not yet that of the coronavirus, but certainly no longer that of before.

It was a ritual as settled as the log at Christmas or the dead leaves falling in the fall.

Each summer, Simon * and his group of friends would go to Brittany for two weeks, investing the first villa to come and strolling between sea and cider.

An idyllic tradition that will not be repeated this summer 2021 for the 30-something: “Between partial unemployment and job insecurity to come in September, I preferred to save my money this summer.

"

He is not the only one.

According to the annual holiday barometer by Europ Assistance and Ipsos, 67% of French people want to go on holiday - two points less than in 2019. Among French people who do not leave, 35% of them say that it is lack of budget.

They were only 27% to give this reason in the summer of 2020.

The health - and economic - crisis of the coronavirus has passed through this.

The economist Stéphanie Villers describes for this summer a France at two speeds: on the one hand, those for whom the sanitary measures have been a source of savings - fewer restaurants, bars, cinemas, while maintaining the same salary - savings that they intend to spend well during their holidays.

On the other hand, French people who saw their wages partially or totally cut during the crisis.

Budget cut among holidaymakers

This gap is seen all the more with the onset of sunny days, a period when the budget is soaring more than the thermometer. Tourism represents a big source of expenditure for the French: 5% of the country's GDP is due to national domestic tourism. In fact, and a fortiori after this crisis, this heavy economy cannot be followed by everyone. “It's a period when we spend a lot more than usual,” recalls Stéphanie Villers. If few French people forgo vacations, many will want to save money on them. It is the luck of France: with such landscapes, it is possible to go sightseeing not far. "

Even among holidaymakers, the impact of the health crisis is being felt: according to the same study, the average French budget for summer holidays is € 1,627, down sharply (-26%) compared to 2019, for an identical average vacation period of 2.1 weeks. According to an INSEE study, in the first quarter of 2021, 22% of households declared that their monthly income had decreased by at least 50 euros compared to that of March 2020, with an average decrease of 290 euros per month and per month. adult.

For the first time, Martin * tightened his belt: “No Paca vacation this year, it was way too expensive for us now.

We hiked in roaming with friends in Auvergne, it allows a lighter budget.

"He assures her, his holidays were punctuated with laughter and beautiful landscapes, but there remains a stubborn bitter taste:" It was not our desire to travel, we suffered this choice.

If we could have gone to the beach and had been hiking anyway, I would have lived it very well.

There, there was always the feeling of constraint, of the shame of not being able.

Almost a failure… ”

The vicious circle of precariousness

Julie *, who had to leave her permanent contract because of the crisis, speaks of the vicious circle of precariousness. The more poverty increases, the more expensive things become. Demonstration of his theory: “When I was in post, I took my holidays well in advance, trains, hotels, nothing was expensive. Now that I don't know when I'm working or not, these are last minute bookings so the prices are going up. The logic described here applies to many other things: chosen activities, classic destinations taken by storm leaving only places that are poorly served and therefore more expensive to get there, cheap accommodation that left earlier, etc. . As a result, “the choices are even narrower than I thought. And there is this feeling of misusing your money, which is all the more unpleasant when you have little. "

Partially unemployed for six months, Chloe is also experiencing an outbreak of negative emotions associated with what she calls her "semi-vacation": "The worst feeling is that of letting go of her friends, of no longer being able to follow them in our annual vacation. With a little humanity still remaining in this world, the friends in question have of course offered a cheaper destination than usual. Choice categorically refused by Chloe: “I didn't want them to sacrifice themselves for me or have a worse vacation because of me. "

The same proposal was made to Julie, who accepted.

A decision she sometimes regretted.

“When I think of our 2018, 2019 or 2020 vacation and I see what we were satisfied with there, I am ashamed of myself and of my budget.

Everything reminded me in our memories of past years how poor I am now.

Because if, as Aznavour sings, misery is less painful in the sun, it is sometimes even more guilty.

We don't have a budget, but we have ideas

There are those who want to be positive anyway. Leaving, even inexpensive, is still leaving. After a year as a very tough independent economically, Jérôme * was far from having the necessary reserves for his great classics, Greece or Cyprus. Whatever, there too, his friends adapted and direction was taken from Nice. “It's still the sea, the sun, and especially the friends. It's silly, but the important thing is not where we go, but with whom. »He praises the benefits of these holidays at« low »price: discovery of France, more friendly and intimate moments in the Airbnb far from crowded bars, and new activities.

Simon prefers to philosophize.

Asking us for the figures for previous years, he noted that in 2019, before masks, hydroalcoholic gel, contact cases, 35% of his fellow citizens were not already going on vacation during the summer.

“I've been away all these previous years, it's already a huge chance.

And if there is indeed a year not to leave, between the rotten weather, the mask, the gauges, etc. .., it is good this year!

I will benefit even more in 2022. ”Rendezvous is taken in the sun.

* First names have been changed

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