Plunge and Changed Recurrence of Leisure Activities in the COVID-19 Era – An Analysis of Three Years of Panel Data

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected everyone's life and how people spend their time. In this surrounding of changes, leisure activities and leisure-related travel gain special attention. Little is known about how affected people behave over time under the circumstances of a pandemic. This paper analyzes the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on leisure activities and leisure-related travel patterns in Germany. The evaluation is based on the unique data set of the German Mobility Panel (MOP), a panel survey where individuals participate for one week in three consecutive years. The analyses show that the different stages of the pandemic drove changes in how people behave in their free time. During the first fall of the COVID-19 pandemic, significant decreases in travel demand are identified across all sociodemographic groups. With the relaxation of preventive measures during the summer of 2021, the previous plunge of leisure activities between 2019 and 2020 slowly returned in the direction of the initial state of 2019. Furthermore, it can be seen that the impact of sociodemographic characteristics such as gender, economic status or occupation status varies between the years and different leisure travel indicators.