The European motor caravan market

Based on the information provided by ECF members, a total of 74,500 motor caravans were newly registered in Europe in 2011. In the previous year, updated new registrations amounted to 68,400 motor caravans, representing an increase of 9.1 percent.

The situation was similar in the the motor caravan segment, which improved in the fi rst half of 2011 as compared to the second half of the same year. Approximately 50,000 motor caravans were newly registered during the first six months of 2011, surpassing the previous year’s result of 45,000 vehicles by 11 percent. In the second half of the year, growth was only marginally above 5 percent compared to the period of the previous year.

Germany was the driver in Europe for 2011, with respect to both caravan sales and as the motor caravan market. With 21,800 newly registered motor caravans, it led the way in front of France with 19,300 vehicles. Italy was in third place with 7,050 newly registered motor caravans. However, Italy was among the European countries that failed to match the result of the previous year. Portugal also experienced a massive loss with minus 32 percent in new registrations in 2011. Denmark as well as Spain had to accept decreases in new registrations of 11.1 percent and 8.1 percent respectively. Italy with minus 6.6 percent and Great Britain (UK) with minus 4.8 percent were both not able to match the results of the previous year. The member associations of the ECF expect that motor caravan registrations may also experience singledigit growth in 2012.