Informe semanal de noticias del mercado alemán de la Oficina de Turismo de Tenerife en Fráncfort
- Destination News
fvw Destination Ranking 2019: Egypt has made a spectacular tourism comeback in the last few years. While Turkey and Tunisia recovered strongly last year, Spain is losing business according to the newly-published fvw Destination Ranking 2019. The Red Sea holidays destination has shown high double-digit growth, with a 40% rise in German visitor numbers and a 35% increase in total international visitors last year. Egypt is also the regional winner in a five-year comparison, nearly doubling the number of German arrivals and with almost one fifth more international visitors, the detailed ranking of major destinations worldwide showed. The other big winner in the Southern Europe & North Africa region is Turkey, which is rapidly winning back business on the German market after a severe decline in 2016 and 2017. Tunisia, too, is recovering well although it has yet to reach past levels of visitors. Other clear success stories seen in the Destination Ranking around the Mediterranean in terms of steady growth include Greece, Cyprus, Morocco, Italy, Croatia, Bulgaria, and Malta. Much of their growth has come at the cost of Spain where high prices have driven holidaymakers to seek cheaper alternatives in the eastern Mediterranean, according to tour operators. The country remains the largest single destination in the region but suffered a drop in overnight stays by German and international visitors last year. Similarly, Portugal declined last year after high single-digit growth in recent years. These trends appear to be continuing this year on the German market, according to the latest booking figures from tour operators.
- Aviation News
Lufthansa ups prices: According to fvw, The Lufthansa Group announced in a statement to the sales department that the fees for seat reservation in the preferred seating area and in the first row will increase in the price zones 3 to 5 on long-haul flights. The prices will increase by 5 euros in each category.
Eurowings: Long-haul flights from Frankfurt can now be booked to the holiday destinations of Barbados, Mauritius, Las Vegas and Windhoek. Eurowings will operate three flights a week to the new attractive destinations in the winter flight schedule 2019/20 from Frankfurt and expands thereby to the most important German airport. With these four new destinations, the airline is expanding its tourist offering in Germany’s largest airport as well. Eurowings will operate the routes using Airbus A330 aircraft with up to 310 seats. Eurowings long-haul flights to Barbados, Mauritius and Windhoek can be booked via lufthansa.com, the Lufthansa Service Center or Lufthansa travel agency partners and viaeurowings.com.
Easyjet leaves the race for Alitalia: Easyjet announced the decision after talks with the Italian rail company Ferrovie dello Stato (FS) and the US carrier Delta Air Lines. Alitalia with its approximately 11,000 employees has been writing losses for years. Already in May 2017, the airline was placed under provisional supervision, after a recovery plan had failed, which called for wage and job cuts. FS announced last month that the Italian railway company was in talks with Easyjet and Delta. In the meantime, Lufthansa had expressed interest, but last October, the company ruled out an acquisition if the Italian government remained involved.
Airport Vienna receives go for third runway: The Administrative Court has rejected appeals by citizens’ groups. The Environmental Impact Assessment has thus been finalized and the listed airport operator, which is owned by Vienna and the region of Lower Austria with 20% each, has a final approval in its pocket.
- Travel Agency News
RTK and Reiseland join marketing forces: The travel agency cooperations RTK and Reiseland have combined their marketing activities and divided them into three fields of competence, according to Touristik Aktuell. Thus, Rainer Gnyp assumes responsibility for performance marketing from now on. This includes the definition of the target group and the direct approach to the customer. Among other things, Gnyp is responsible for major projects with the marketing partners and Payback, as well as B2B2C contacts via social media, travel agency TV or Google. Colleague Peter Möschl is responsible for the brand management. He looks after the travel agency brands RTK and Meinreisespezialist. Gnyp is responsible for the classic marketing and takes care of the travel agency communication. Hauke Moll is now Head of Business Partnership Marketing. The competence field includes the positioning of RTK, Meinreisespezialist and Reiseland with tour operators, hotels and destinations. In addition, Moll retains the marketing responsibility for the Reiseland brand.
- Cruise News
Princess Cruises expands German-speaking service offers:Henceforth, the American first-class cruise company will guarantee a contact person on a variety of cruises, with whom passengers from Germany, Austria or Switzerland can speak in their native language. This offer complements the German-language on-board service, which is still available only on selected cruises.