Caravanning in Europe

I know that many Australians would consider the caravan industry in Europe pretty low key, if for no other reason than the weather doesn’t always appear to be conducive to this leisurely activity. Actually, as in Australia, it is a very popular pastime, but as I discovered, incorrect perceptions work two ways.

There we were, sitting in a conference room in BMW headquarters in Munich discussing towing specifications with a couple of BMW engineers. Part way through the meeting one person commented that caravanning couldn’t be very popular in Australia because of the vastness of the country and the low population.

Fortunately I had some statistics on hand as well as a copy of Caravan World magazine to set the record straight.

If there is one difference between Europe and Australia it must be sheer numbers. This includes the population, the number of cars, the output from factories and the transportation system. And this must have an influence on how things are done.

Let me give a couple of examples to set the scene. While at BMW, we went on a factory tour to see how the 3-series was made. We walked 3.5km in 2.5 hours and by no means saw all facets of the factory. The Munich plant is one of 10 in Germany and produces 800 vehicles and 1200 engines a day.

I was also fortunate to be able to visit the parts distribution plant. This is the size of 20 soccer fields with 4.5km of automated conveyor system.

On a different topic in Frankfurt, famous for its Motor Show, 1000 trains come and go each day. When we travelled from Düsseldorf to Munich (a bit like going from Melbourne to Canberra) there was a train departure every hour. But back to caravanning.

The caravan market in Europe has grown consistently since 2001, increasing almost 17 per cent to the end of 2004. The market for motor caravans increased 27 per cent in the last five years. In the UK alone registrations of motorhomes doubled in seven years.

The European Caravan Federation reports that in the first half of 2005 RV sales rose a further 1.5 per cent to 126,108 units. About 51,000 of these were motor caravans, or what we would call motorhomes and campervans, an increase of 7.5 per cent compared to the same period the previous year.

Caravan sales on the other hand were down 2.3 per cent to 74,980 for the six months. Sales in the three largest motor caravan markets – Germany, France and Italy – were all up.

France topped the list with 14.5 per cent, then Germany with 4.9 per cent and Italy 1.1 per cent. The 2.3 per cent downturn in caravan sales was due to Germany, Great Britain and the Netherlands, the latter dropping 15.7 per cent. However this still amounted to 13,400 vans in six months. Not bad for a country with a population of only 16 million people.

Reportedly, the Netherlands has the highest per capita RV ownership in the world, while France has the largest number of sites.

Looking at the bigger picture, there are well over four million touring caravans in use in Europe. After the USA, Britain is the largest touring caravan market in the world.

Talking about caravans in Britain can be a bit misleading as the units that are placed onsite in parks are also known as caravans, or caravan holiday homes. Hence the term touring caravan is used for the ones that are towed.

It is estimated that there are about 500,000 touring caravans and 130,000 motor caravans in use in the UK. In addition to this there are 350,000 caravan holiday homes or what we may refer to as onsite units. Residential park homes number about 80,000.

The main reasons that the latter is relatively low is the lack of available sites, as well as the shortage and high cost of land for normal housing in many parts of the country.

In Britain there are more than 4,200 licensed parks. This includes 1600 parks in England, Scotland and Wales that accept residential units. Overall, caravanning and camping are the most popular holiday activities for Britons.

About 70 million holiday nights are spent in caravans each year. In total this segment of the market is worth about 3 million euros (AUS$4,801,559) per year.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that European caravanners don’t travel the distances we cover in Australia. As a comparison, Adelaide to Darwin is roughly the same distance as London to Moscow.

In Britain the seaside is a favourite destination, and since generally you are only 115km from the sea it isn’t necessary to be on the road for long.

Those who have driven in the UK will know that you have to allow a little extra time to go from A to B. It was our experience that you would allow about twice as long to travel a given distance than in Australia, even more so if you are not on a motorway.

There seemed to be a lot of road works, the odd accident and traffic blockages that didn’t appear to have any particular cause. Along the minor roads there are endless towns and villages.

I mentioned to a few English caravanners that in Australia it is possible to travel 1500km, Alice Springs to Darwin, and only have to slow down for two towns, but I don’t think that they believed me.

A considerable number of Britons head for the continent, particularly in the colder time of the year, and go to places like Spain, Portugal and Southern France. Many Scandinavians do the same.

We were told that while many northerners go south, many fewer do the opposite – for example, not many Italians drive to Germany or the UK. But when you can enjoy a nice Mediterranean climate, why would you?

Many in the UK own residential caravans. While they are relocatable, they can’t be easily towed from one place to another. Most are 3-4m wide and perhaps as much as 10m long, and many seaside parks seemed to be full of these residential units.

On the other end of the scale there are also holiday parks or resorts that are solely for caravans and motorhomes.

It seems that Ireland is becoming increasingly popular with caravanners. Having spent a week in southern Ireland, minus a caravan, it is easy to see why. The people are friendly and the scenery is magnificent. Taking a rig across the Irish Sea, however, is not cheap.

The four-hour crossing from Liverpool to Dublin starts at £180 ($450). In comparison a two-hour journey from Dover to Dunkerque in France was advertised at £170 ($425) for car and caravan.

Some motorhome owners with a spirit of adventure will head for North or South America or Africa. They entrust their RV to a forwarding company which takes care of all the shipping arrangements. I asked one company, AFL Logistics, why not Australia?

The reason is simple: it is far too expensive. A return journey for an average size motorhome from Europe to Australia can be as much as $50,000 including a myriad of charges, which certainly takes the shine off things.

To compensate, there are other travel companies that arrange fly-drive holidays to Australia with the ‘drive’ bit done in rented motorhomes. A popular itinerary seems to be to fly from London to

Perth, then to Uluru and on to Cairns or Brisbane.

Hired motorhomes then take the tourists along the east coast to either Sydney or Melbourne, depending on the length of the trip. One tour goes from Sydney to Melbourne via Wagga Wagga.

When Kevin Taylor, media relations manager for Mitsubishi, found out that we were going to check out the industry in the UK, he arranged the loan of a vehicle so we could sample towing in Britain.

The English Mitsubishi people probably thought that anyone from Australia must be used to big cars so they offered a Shogun Warrior, known in Australia as the Pajero Exceed.

For reasons of economy we would have opted for a smaller vehicle but as they say, you don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.

Having a large car in the UK has advantages and disadvantages. Sitting up high was a definite benefit when travelling on foreign soil. It was easier to spot road signs and any traffic ahead. It also allowed us to see over tops of hedges that border many of the smaller country roads.

Like the local Exceed, the Shogun was loaded with features.

The one that we appreciated most was the navigation system. Enter a town, street or tourist attraction and the system would be your guide.

Although we had used cars with navigation systems previously, it was more out of novelty value as we generally knew where to head anyway. But when you haven’t got a clue as to the shortest, quickest or easiest way to go from Bournemouth to Liverpool, it is great to have some help.

The Shogun never gave us any concerns, however, we did find ourselves on numerous occasions explaining the choice of car to others as a vehicle like this is still somewhat of a novelty in the UK.

Nevertheless I was surprised at the large number of 4WDs and SUVs in the UK, with probably half being dual-cab utes.

Comments from non-4WD owners were the same as in Australia – “why do people need such a large vehicle to take the kids to school?”. In the UK where the opportunity to use

the 4WD capability is harder to find, this is probably a more relevant question.

With fuel at one pound plus a litre, we were glad that the Shogun was a diesel. Solo running returned an average of 10.5 L/100km. Operating conditions varied from 80mph

(130km/h) on the motorway, to stop-starts on B roads and crawling through cities.

Due to the nature of our towing exercise we didn’t have an opportunity to obtain any reliable fuel consumption stats while towing. From all the information we could gather it appears that towing consumption figures that you might boast about are not the norm in the UK, one reason being that it is difficult to sit on a steady speed for long distances.

Part two of Tom’s look at Europe will appear in next month’s CW.