Informe semanal de noticias del mercado alemán de la Oficina de Turismo de Tenerife en Berlín
- Destacamos:
Travel days of Germans: 408 million travel days for Germans on day trips and overnight stays in Germany and abroad in the first 4 months of 2019 meant an increase of 1.2 percent over the same period of the previous year. In 2018, Germans spent a total of more than 1.71 billion (Source: BTW Tourism Index).
- Market News
30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall: In the current week, not only Berlin has celebrated the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall with events and exhibitions dealing with its construction, the division of Berlin, the Cold War and the Peaceful Revolution of 1989. This was also one of the talking points of the annual meeting of the German travel industry (BTW) in Berlin. BTW communicated market numbers for the tourism industry:
Economic factor tourism: Nearly 3 million people in Germany owe their jobs to tourism. Around 4 percent of gross value added in Germany is accounted for by tourism consumption. Thus, the industry is on par with the automotive industry and mechanical engineering.
Travel mood: The tourism index also showed a positive travel mood and forecast for the whole of 2019 in the middle of the year. Consumer mood as well as the desire to travel lasted until the middle of the year – despite criticisms critical of tourism in the course of the climate debate. The tourism index was clearly in positive territory at 1.4 points in the middle of the year. Based on the tourism index, travel days are expected to increase by around 1.5 percent for the full year 2019. (Source: BTW).
Insolvency protection of TUI and DER: Examinations by the German Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (Bafin) in the case of customer money protection agreements of the German Travel Price Security Association (DRS), include tour operators such as TUI and DER Touristik, have concluded its financial securities to be insufficient, should a case of emergency arise. The procedure of its customer money protection is based on mutual protection. Although its form has offered as reliable and cheaper option to its client, the evaluation of the German Federal Financial Supervisory Authority have categorized it to be an inadmissible risk mitigation. Since the insolvency of Thomas Cook, all options are being evaluated and reconsidered, such as the classic form of reinsurance coverage or the alternative bank guarantees. Although the classic forms of financial protection are calculated to be of higher costs, the importance of reliable safeguarding cannot be dismissed.
German tourism industry looks ahead to post-Cook future: The tourism industry needs to re-establish consumer trust in package holidays and ensure fairer business relationships in response to the Thomas Cook insolvency, top German managers agreed during an fvw round-table discussion. Five senior managers – Sören Hartmann (DER Touristik), Gerald Kassner (Schauinsland-Reisen), Thomas Bösl (RT-Reisen), Paul Schwaiger (Condor) and Finn Ackermann (Iberostar) – accepted fvw’s invitation to discuss the impact of the insolvency of Germany’s second-largest tour operator on the market and on consumers. All the discussion participants agreed that the German tour operator insolvency insurance law would have to be reformed in the wake of Cook’s collapse, which had shown that €110 million was far too low as an insurance sum. But opinions varied whether premiums should simply be increased or a new model was necessary. The tourism managers were united in their support for Condor, which is currently in talks with potential buyers, as an independent leisure airline. «It’s important for Condor that we say that we want to have this product in future. That will give any future investor the necessary security,» said Hartmann. «As an industry, we stand behind this airline and want to have it as an independent carrier.» Condor sales director Paul Schwaiger welcomed this support. «If we had not had the support of our major customers, sales partners and the public, then we would not have stood a chance,» he admitted. In future, Condor wanted to sell capacity mostly through diverse tour operators with only a relatively small proportion of direct sales to consumers, he added, according to FVW.
- Destination News
Turkey drops as German bookings weaken in October: German bookings for top holiday destinations dropped back in October with a slump in demand for Turkey, Greece and parts of Spain reported FVW recently. The overall 3% fall last month follows a surprisingly strong 8% rise in September. However, this latter figure may have been distorted by a surge in new bookings by Thomas Cook customers, given the 27% rise in summer 2019 bookings in September reported by researchers TDA who highlighted this one-off effect. In October, demand appears to have tailed off again as German consumers mostly focused on destinations for winter 2019/20 holidays in the sun or booked early for next summer, according to the Amadeus figures for package and online bookings for the top ten mass destinations. Demand for Spain fluctuated strongly last month. Bookings for Palma tumbled by 15%, continuing the generally weak demand for Majorca in recent months. Further west, however, three of the four main Canary Island destinations grew on the German market last month. Bookings for Fuerteventura (+12%) and Lanzarote (+9%) increased strongly while Tenerife South (+1%) showed a slight rise. But Las Palmas (-7%) once again suffered a significant decline. Greece had a poor month in terms of the German package and online bookings. Both Heraklion (-7%) and Rhodes (-6%) saw weaker demand in contrast to strong double-digit growth in September.
- Tour Operator News
DER Touristik about to buy Sentido and Holiday Land: With DER Touristik, holidaymakers can book 300 new hotels from the former Thomas Cook offer. In addition houses of the marks belong Iberostar, Casa Cook and Aldiana. The company is also aiming to acquire the hotel brand Sentido, which previously belonged to Thomas Cook. This was announced by DER Touristik with the brands Dertour, Meiers Weltreisen, ADAC Reisen, ITS and Jahn Reisen at the presentation of its summer programme in Doha in Qatar. There are different developments in travel prices: In the Canary Islands, for example, prices will fall by an average of five percent in summer 2020. In Turkey, on the other hand, the price will rise by an average of 3.5 per cent, in Austria and Greece by four per cent. Domestic holiday prices are also rising by an average of four percent. Moreover DER Touristik announced it wants to offer the 355 Holiday Land franchise partners «a new, secure and financially successful home». The group already has one of the biggest travel agency networks in Germany with 2,400 branded branches as well as a separate franchise Network.
- Aviation News
Summer 2020
schedules: According to FVW, Germany’s three main leisure airlines
Condor, Eurowings and TUIfly are all adding new holiday destinations in various
European countries next summer to boost their networks.
Condor will take off to the
Côte d’Azur for the first time, add new destinations in Montenegro and on
Cyprus, and also increase some of its existing frequencies to Greece, Mallorca
and the Canary Islands. From Frankfurt, the airline will fly three times a week
to Toulon, serving destinations along the Côte d’Azur, and operate twice-weekly
services to the Montenegrin port city of Tivat. There will be new twice-weekly
flights to Paphos on Cyprus from Frankfurt, Munich, Düsseldorf and Leipzig.
Condor will also add more flights from various German airports to the Greek
islands of Mykonos, Samos and Santorini, as well as to Gran Canaria, Tenerife and
Fuerteventura. The airline has rescheduled capacity away from Turkey, Tunisia
and Italy for these new and additional flights.
Eurowings will expand flights
significantly next summer from Hamburg, Stuttgart, Dusseldorf and Cologne to a
mix of city and beach destinations. From Hamburg, the Lufthansa budget airline
will offer eight new destinations – Gothenburg, Oslo, Prague, Valencia, Malaga,
Gran Canaria, Fuerteventura and Larnaca – and increase flights to Thessaloniki.
From Stuttgart there will be new flights to Bucharest, Belgrade, Florence, Kos,
Malta and Jersey, while Malaga is a new route from Cologne. The Düsseldorf
schedule will be expanded with new routes to Gdansk, Sofia, Verona and
Santorini, along with more flights to Barcelona.
For its part, TUIfly is
increasing capacity significantly next summer from Nuremberg, where a second
plane will be stationed, with new flights to Palma and Corfu and more
frequencies to Crete, Rhodes, Gran Canaria and Hurghada. However, with seven
stationed planes, Düsseldorf will remain the airline’s biggest departure
airport next summer with total capacity of 815,000 seats on nearly 100 weekly
flights to 24 destinations. Meanwhile, TUI Germany will increase flight
capacity to the Dominican Republic by 50% next summer with three new weekly
full charter Eurowings A330 flights from Düsseldorf to Punta Cana between May
and October.
