Informe semanal de noticias del mercado alemán de la Oficina de Turismo de Tenerife en Fráncfort

  • Market News

Price cuts drive up German demand but no last-minute boom:According to FVW, leading German travel trade magazine, German consumers are starting to book their summer holidays thanks to big discounts after waiting much longer than usual this year but there is no sign yet of a last-minute bookings surge, according to tour operators. Savings of up to 50 percent are apparently on offer for customers who are flexible with departure airports and travel dates. Spanish hoteliers in particular are being flexible with prices in respond to disappointing sales as consumers prefer destinations such as Turkey and Egypt this summer. “Spanish hoteliers have reacted and are currently offering additional discounts of up to 50 percent on the hotel price, which we are passing on to our customers,” confirmed Patrick Hogrefe, TUI Germany’s head of product management Sun & Beach. This appears to be paying off with rising bookings for Spanish destinations. “In the last few weeks we have generally seen a significant rise in bookings in Germany, including for last-minute offers,” Hogrefe added. FTI, Schauinsland-Reisen and Thomas Cook see a similar trend.

The next mobile revolution is coming:As FVW reported, Apps and real-time data have changed tourism, but the true mobile revolution will come with 5G, according to Atcore CIO Nigel Beighton. At the fvw Kongress the technology expert will explain how the era of ultra-fast mobile communications will create new opportunities for the travel industry. The next generation of 5G technology will enable data transfer 10 to 100 times faster than today. This means large quantities of data can be called up in real-time. This could be a breakthrough for the tourism industry and travellers. Where is the right hotel? Where is the next POI? Is there a free tour guide? “The next mobile revolution has just begun,” says Nigel Beighton, CIO of British travel IT company Atcore. “We are about to reach the next level of this revolution with new changes, challenges and opportunities for the travel industry.”

Business travel reaches new record level:The German Travel Management Association (VDR) reported a new record high for business travel. As the recently published VDR Business Travel Analysis 2019 shows, expenditure rose by 1.8 percent year-on-year, reaching a new all-time high of 53.5 billion euros. This means that German companies and public institutions spent more budget on their business trips in 2018 than ever before.

  • Destination News

These are the top summer holiday destinations in 2019:About Travel, a German trade magazine, published a ranking by Hotelplan of the top summer holiday destinations and divided them into short, medium and long-haul routes. For the summer of 2019, swimming holidays by the sea with the whole family are clearly at the forefront. Spain is the leader in short- and medium-haul swimming holidays, followed by Greece, Cyprus, Italy and then Tunisia. Thailand, Mauritius, the United Arab Emirates, Indonesia and the fifth place Maldives lead the long distance swimming holidays. In terms of individual and round trips, the USA is in first place, followed by Canada, cruises in general, Ireland & Great Britain and Norway & Sweden in fifth place.

  • Aviation News

Airports want to reduce emissions to zero until 2050:According to fvw, leading German travel trade magazine, the ADV airports as infrastructure providers take their responsibility seriously and have already agreed on a joint climate protection strategy in 2009. Although aviation accounts for only 2.8 percent of carbon dioxide emissions, the industry is working to further improve its environmental footprint. The new target is zero: European airports today announced a target of reducing emissions to zero by 2050. The ADV member airports of Frankfurt, Munich, Düsseldorf, Hamburg, Stuttgart, Vienna, Zurich and Budapest have also committed themselves to this. In a press release the association stated that a lot had already happened: from 2010 to 2017, ADV airports had already reduced their CO2 emissions by 20 percent, which corresponds to a reduction of 37 percent per passenger.

Lufthansa re-boots Eurowings and questions Condor:Leading German trade magazine FVW said, Lufthansa is putting profits before growth by cutting loss-making Eurowings back to basics and playing down its chances of buying Condor from Thomas Cook. At its first capital markets day since 2011, Germany’s dominant airline this week told analysts what they wanted to hear. The expensive Eurowings adventure will be scaled back to the original concept of low-priced short-haul flights, there will be a new strategy for Brussels Airlines, and the group might not buy Condor from Thomas Cook Group after all. Instead, the Lufthansa Group will focus more strongly on improving its financial results, top executives made clear in presentations at the event on Monday.

Lauda boss Gruber expects another difficult summer:As the airline Lauda reported, air travellers will have to be patient this summer as well. «It will definitely not get any better», said airline boss Andreas Gruber in Vienna with a view to the chaos summer of 2018. A year ago, there were major problems, not least because of the strong growth in European air traffic, which is overloading the infrastructure. Lauda is preparing to react to any delays with two replacement machines.

Eurowings’ new boarding concept is paying off:According to Eurowings, the number of delayed flights has significantly decreased since the new boarding rules came into force. At the end of April, the airline introduced stricter controls on hand baggage at Hamburg Airport. If you give away too heavy on-board trolleys, you have to pay.

  • Tour Operator News

DER Touristik expands flight capacity and luxury holidays: Leading German trade magazine FVW said, DER Touristik is expanding its winter programme by 20 percent, with 7,000 more hotels on offer from Dertour alone. In terms of flights, the tour operator is focusing on flexibility, enabling customers to book individual flight combinations covering periods. Moreover, coach holidays can now be booked as private tours, either with a chauffeur or own car, in response to rising demand for more individual holidays. For Egypt, DER has contracted more capacity on Sun Express flights to Hurghada, while there are new Condor flights to the Dominican Republic and Kenya. The long-haul programme is being expanded with more hotels in Thailand and the Caribbean, along with new tours in Mexico, southern and eastern Africa. Dertour Deluxe, the premium holidays brand, is expanding its cruises programme, offering holidays on all the Seabourn ships and new vessels from Silversea Cruises, Ponant und Sea Dream Yacht Club. There are also new city trips to Israel. Bookings have started well for the winter, according to DER Touristik. Among short-haul and medium-haul destinations, demand is strong for Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Tunisia, Egypt, the Canaries and the Emirates, while the Caribbean, Asia, Africa and the Indian Ocean are popular as exotic destinations. Prices for winter 2019/20 are “overwhelmingly stable”, according to the tour operator, including for Mallorca, mainland Spain, Tunisia and the UAE. The Canaries will be as much as 10 percent cheaper, while there are slight rises for Egypt and Turkey, and moderate increases for the USA, Caribbean and Asia due to exchange rate fluctuations.

Cook offices provide the best advice: As reported by touristik aktuell, one of the German trade magazines, Thomas Cook travel agencies offer the best on-site advice. This is the conclusion of the new service study «Reisebüro 2019», from the German Institute for Service Quality (DISQ). It tested 13 travel agency chains for service and competence on behalf of the TV channel N-TV. Second place went to the travel agency cooperation TUI Travel Star, third place to the travel agency chain Lufthansa City Center. The Cook offices were the only ones to receive the quality rating «very good». According to DISQ, the employees take a lot of time for the concerns of the customers, determine their needs in the most targeted way and advise them individually and comprehensively.

  • Cruise News

German Cruise Market Adds Over 12,000 Berths in 2019:The German cruise market is adding over 12,000 additional berths this year, according to the 2019 Cruise Industry News Annual Report. Led by annualized service from the AIDAnova, which debuted in late 2018, TUI Cruises added the new “Mein Schiff 2” and also kept its former “Mein Schiff 2” as the “Mein Schiff Herz”, pushing another 4,750 berths into the market. Indirect capacity is added into the market in the form of MSC Cruises, which sources heavily in Germany, as do Royal Caribbean International and Costa Cruises. In addition, smaller niche and diversified operators are growing, including Cruise & Maritime Voyages’ Transocean operation, which acquired the 1,266-guest ship Vasco da Gama. Phoenix Reisen adds a ship this summer as well, with the former Prinsendam becoming the Amera after a drydock for the German brand. Hapag-Lloyd Cruises also grows, adding two new luxury expedition ships, the Hanseatic Nature and Hanseatic Inspiration.

 

 

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