Bookings for under-18 year old students, which accounted for over three-quarters of total bookings, increased from 62.98% in 2012  to 68.57% last year. Some 94% of junior bookings were for English language courses. The UK continues to dominate destination choice but has lost market share to English speaking competitors, the association reports.

“The FDSV is quite happy about the good performance of the German language travel market and travel language tour operators are very optimistic looking forward to the season 2014,” Managing Director of FDSV Julia Richter told The PIE News.

“Other countries struggle due to economic problems, but German parents, students and business people still spend a lot of money in education”

“Other countries struggle due to economic problems, but German parents, students and business people still spend a lot of money in education,” she added.

Based on responses from 100 agencies and tour operators in cooperation with The University of Heilbronn, the statistics show that English courses dominate across all age groups, accounting for  85.63% of all student bookings compared with 82.62% in the previous year.

While the UK accounts for the lion’s share of junior and adult bookings, the association reports that its domination is slipping. UK bookings represented 23.58% of of adult business, down from 25.46%  in 2012 and 66.19% of the junior market slipping from 75.23%.

The decline gave way to an increase in bookings for Malta, the second most popular destination, which increased one percentage point to 14.8%, while longer-haul English-speaking countries Canada, the USA, New Zealand and South Africa also saw a boost.

Spanish, French and Italian were the next most requested languages, but all suffered a minor decline in demand while Chinese and Japanese programmes remained steady.  Russian and other languages increased slightly.

In terms of student weeks, there was an overall increase in business recorded according to FDSV’s analysis, increasing from 104,678 in 2012 to 110,442 last year. The average course length overall was 2.20 weeks.

Student weeks to the USA almost doubled to 13,544, driven by an average course length rise from 3.34 to 4.80 weeks. There was also student week growth registered for Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, Spain, Latin America, Italy, Asia and Russia.

“Children tend to go on a language trip even earlier in life, and some of them prefer to make their first experience in learning another language in German speaking countries”

Reflecting the rise in youth mobility, the association for the first time reported an interest for foreign languages in Germany or German-speaking countries.

While these language programmes themselves are not new, agents have moved to cater to an increasing demand in Germany, Austria and Switzerland for younger students that want their first study abroad experience to be closer to home. Bookings for German-speaking countries amounted to 6.57% of overall business, and 9.56% of the junior market

“Children tend to go on a language trip even earlier in life, and some of them prefer to make their first experience in learning another language in German speaking countries,” said Richter.