Informe semanal noticias Alemania realizado por la Oficina de Turismo de Tenerife en Fráncfort
Tour Operator News
- RIU Hotels & Resorts is coming to Canada: TUI Group announced, that the Spanish chain is set to build a hotel in its Riu Plaza urban line, budgeting an investment of around 100 million dollars for the project. RIU Hotels & Resorts has announced the construction of a hotel in its Riu Plaza urban line, in Toronto, the largest city in Canada and the cultural, business and financial centre of the country. The Spanish company intends to invest around 100 million dollars in the project, that will establish the first RIU hotel in Canada and will add continuity to the hotel company’s plan to expand into the world’s great cities. The project, designed in a sophisticated avant-garde style, as a part of the Riu Plaza line, is now near the end of the design phase and is set to open in 2021. The building, a newly-built modern tower block, will be located in the city’s financial district and is mixed use. RIU’s investment in the part intended for the hotel will have 350 rooms, meeting rooms, a gym, bar and restaurant; while the upper floors will be for residential use.
- Sunny outlook for 2019 as Turkey takes off: As stated by fvw, German leisure travel will grow solidly this year with strong demand likely for holidays in Turkey, according to market researchers and TUI. The prospects for German outbound travel look good for 2019 thanks to a stable economy and continuing high travel demand, according to the initial results of the annual Reiseanalyse survey of about 7,500 consumers, which were presented at the CMT travel show in Stuttgart. Germans have both time (63%) and money (60%) to go on holiday this year, one percentage point higher than last year’s figures, the survey found. But they plan to keep a closer eye on costs in 2019. Whereas 30% of respondents wanted to spend more on their holiday last year, this year’s figure has dropped slightly to 29%, while 14% plan to reduce holiday spending compared to 13% last year. There will be few changes in the top destinations in 2019, according to the Reiseanalyse. Domestic holidays in Germany remain the clear number one choice (30%), followed by Spain, Italy, Turkey and Austria. Demand is likely to be high for Croatia and Greece, while Egypt and North Africa will probably see strong growth rates, according to the researchers. In 2018, Germans went on about 71 million holidays (+2%) and spent a total of €75 billion (+3%), the survey results showed. In addition, the number of short trips (2-4 days) increased by 1% to 92 million. Prof. Martin Lohmann, responsible for the in-depth annual Reiseanalyse market survey conducted by the FUR research network, described the current “mood for holidays” as “extremely good”. In general, Germans are “experienced travellers, demanding, wanting to discover and multi-optional”, and are planning more trips and higher spending in 2019, he emphasised. Meanwhile, TUI Germany also released its current bookings trends at the CMT, showing dramatic growth for Turkey, strong bookings for Egypt and some smaller destinations, and rising demand for long-haul holidays, especially to the USA and Caribbean. “Germans are again in the mood to travel in 2019. There are already signs of a good start to the summer season,” declared Stefan Baumert, TUI Germany’s tourism director. Germany’s largest tour operator said that Turkey is currently “in the fast lane” and it has a triple-digit surge in bookings for the country, which has risen to the third most-popular destination. Egypt has the highest growth rate after Turkey, Cyprus is growing strongly as a lesser-known Mediterranean destination, and demand is also good for the Cape Verde Islands, Croatia and Germany. Nevertheless, Spain and Greece remain top destinations for German tourists. Long-haul holidays are also gaining popularity, and TUI has a 20% rise in bookings for this segment. Apart from the USA, the number one summer destination, demand is also good for the Caribbean (Jamaica, Cuba, Dominican Republic) and the Indian Ocean (Maldives, Seychelles), the market leader said.
Market News
- CMT – largest consumer tourism fair in Europe is taking place this week in Stuttgart and gives always first market indications for the year: “Since 2010, one record has chased another» said Prof. Dr. Martin Lohmann, scientific advisor to the Forschungsgemeinschaft Urlaub und Reisen (FUR), on Friday, 11 January, at the opening press conference of CMT 2019 in Stuttgart. The signs for the coming season are also “clear positive». 480 million overnight stays were reported for 2018, “significantly more than 2017″. This would result from overgrowth of foreign guests (five per cent) as well as domestic guests (four per cent). The desire of Germans themselves to travel is also unbroken, as they have spent around 75 billion euros on their 71 million trips. Travel agencies, airports or shipping companies have once again experienced a strong increase in demand “Destination number one» remained his own country even in 2018 ”With nine million holiday trips, the people of Baden-Wuerttemberg had once again proved to be “particularly travel-friendly». The outlook for 2019: stable demand. “Various factors kept us on our toes in 2018″ said Lohmann. Nevertheless, natural events, terror or political uncertainty played a much smaller role in travel behaviour than the respective personal situation. The majority of Germans expect at least the same or even improved financial conditions. Traveling is a “habit we have grown fond of» so that the “mood for holiday trips»; is also “extremely good»; in 2019. Last November, around 80 per cent of Germans had already thought about their holiday, 60 per cent saw “sufficient financial leeway»; for this. These “travel-savvy, demanding, curious and multi-optional»; customers planned “even more travel and higher spending»; in 2019, thus ensuring “stable demand patterns»; that can be relied on in the long term.
- 2019 – to Brexit and beyond: According to fvw, Germany’s leading travel trade magazine, Brexit will be the hot topic under discussion by airline bosses and airport managers at the inaugural European Aviation Symposium at the end of January amid continuing uncertainty following the UK Parliament’s overwhelming rejection of the government’s EU exit deal. British travel association ABTA was quick to stress yesterday that the European Commission and the UK government had each already assured in December that flights between the UK and the EU will continue after March 29, with or without a Brexit deal. Nevertheless, there are still plenty of open questions, particularly over airline ownership rules and airport slots. These will no doubt be top of mind when senior executives, managers and officials from across Europe gather at Munich Airport on January 29-30 for the first European Aviation Symposium. Participants will be particularly keen to hear Thomas Cook Airlines CEO Christoph Debus explain how the UK-based tourism group is preparing for Brexit. Future regulation of the EU aviation market will be discussed by Peter Bellew (COO, Ryanair), Robert Boyle (Director of Strategy, IAG), Rafal Milczarski (CEO, LOT) and Piret Mürk-Dubout (CEO, Tallin Airport) in a top-level panel on the first morning. Other key topics on the first day include the status of European Single Sky implementation, digitalisation, and round tables on issues such as disruptive challenges to the industry and competitive conditions. Airports will come into the focus on the second morning, with sessions covering issues such as capacity and security. Airline managers will then discuss the role of partnerships for their business, and also the future of sales distribution. In a separate panel, Thomas Haagensen (Easyjet’s Director Global Markets Europe), Oliver Lackmann (CEO, TUIfly) and Oliver Wagner (CCO, Eurowings) will discuss how low-cost carriers are increasingly challenging both established network airlines and also leisure carriers. Is Google a partner or a competitor? This vital question for the travel industry will be addressed by Nicola Simionato, Google’s General Manager Business Development Travel and a former Alitalia and Gulf Air manager, in a panel discussion with Balint Gyemant, head of Invia Flights (Fluege.de parent company) and Kristjan Jansons, co-founder and CEO of AI application agency Minditan. They will also discuss how technology is changing flight searches and how artificial intelligence will improve processes and personalisation.
- Summer bookings drop in December: Accoring to the latest monthly GfK figures, there was little seasonal cheer for German travel agents last month as their holiday bookings dropped below the previous year’s levels and overall travel trade sales were driven by online bookings, according. The good news in December came from winter holiday bookings which increased by 4% and left cumulative bookings up by 6% to date. This is one percentage point lower than in November but still indicates a solid winter season overall, the market researchers’ analysis of sales by 2,000 representative travel agencies, OTAs and tour operator websites showed. More important for travel agents is the coming summer season, which made up 60% of total sales revenues in December. Demand is proving weak, however, with a slight 1% fall in summer 2019 bookings last month following on from a 2% drop in November. Once again, travel agency sales lagged behind overall trends. Their revenues for winter 208/19 were down by 1% and were 4% lower for the forthcoming summer. Higher online bookings compensated for these declines, and generated the slightly better overall figures, according to GfK. However, it is still fairly early in the booking season, with only one quarter of last year’s total summer revenues generated to date. A clearer picture of demand trends will come with the January and February figures, which will be challenged by strong growth rates of early 2018. The GfK figures were supported by the latest travel agency sales figures from IT services provider Tats for December. These showed a 3.1% drop in overall sales, with tourism including cruises down by 1.7% but cruises alone up by 4.6%. This indicates weak demand for beach holidays last month.
Aviation News
- Emirates reduces connections to Germany in April and May: As stated by reisevor9, in April and May, the southern runway at Dubai International Airport will be renewed internationally. The work is scheduled for a total of 45 days from 16 April to 30 May. During this period, Emirates shut down 48 of its fleet at its hub and reduced the number of flights by 25 percent. This also affects the connections to Germany. The airline flies to Frankfurt 21 times a week, 17 times in April and 14 times in May. Between Dubai and Munich there are 14 weekly flights in April and 14 in May. Regular are also 21 connections here. In Dusseldorf, the number of rounds during this period is reduced from 14 to seven per week. Emirates then flies to and from Hamburg eight times instead of 14 times.
- Flight Summer 2018: 2.7 million more passengers abroad than in the previous year: During the summer timetable from April to October 2018, 66.2 million passengers traveled from Germany to other countries. As reported by the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis), this was a good 2.7 million or 4.3% more passengers than in the summer timetable 2017. By contrast, domestic air traffic declined by 2.3%. The number of passengers in total air traffic for the summer of 2018 grew by 3.0% to 80.5 million. In the summer of 2017, there were still 78.1 million passengers. Tourism-related international air traffic developed very differently: North Africa in particular benefited. Air traffic to Morocco grew by 21.4%, Egypt by 38.3% and Tunisia by 49.6%. The number of passengers traveling to Turkey (+20.1%) and Greece (+15.0%) also increased strongly. By contrast, air traffic with the classic holiday destination Spain only increased by 1.8%. In fact, the Canary Islands saw a slight decline of 1.7%. Air traffic with the US declined sharply by -6.7%. The passenger traffic with destination Caribbean islands has decreased even more. Compared with 2017, 12.6% fewer passengers flew to destinations in this region last summer.