Nearly one in five residents of the Netherlands did not go on vacation last year, according to Statistics Netherlands (CBS). The proportion of Dutch people aged 15 or older who stayed home

decreased slightly from the previous year. In 2022, just over a fifth of Netherlands residents didn’t take a holiday.

In 2020, the first year of the coronavirus pandemic, almost a third of the population stayed home, partly due to travel restrictions. The number of people not going on holiday began to decline again from 2021, but it remains higher than the pre-pandemic level of 18.5 percent in 2019.

Among those who stayed home last year, a third said it was because they don't enjoy vacations. Other common reasons included health issues, financial constraints, and lack of time due to work, study, or family obligations. Safety concerns were the least frequently mentioned reason for not going on vacation.

Older individuals were more likely to skip vacations compared to younger people. Forty-four percent of those over 75 did not go on holiday last year, compared to 12 percent of those aged 15 to 25. Health issues were the primary reason older people stayed home.

Income also played a significant role in vacation trends. Thirty-eight percent of people in the lowest income group didn’t go on holiday, compared to just 8 percent in the highest income group. Additionally, individuals from single-person households or single-parent families were less likely to take vacations than those from other household types.

In 2023, Netherlands residents aged 15 or older went on holiday an average of 2.5 times, totaling 37.6 million vacations. Photo by Vladimir Menkov, Wikimedia commons.