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

  • Destacamos

Travelers want experiences instead of just a hotel bed: From business to bleisure trips, from family to health vacations – according to Expedia, all of these are factors that automatically provide more accommodation options. The portal is also seeing a strong increase in demand for special accommodation such as houseboats, yachts, mobile homes and airstreams. And in the future, AI will know where we want to go before we know it ourselves. As Expedia predicts in its travel trends for the new decade, diversity is important to travelers, but hotel chains and independent hotels will remain a crucial part of the travel universe. AI would enable companies to predict what they will buy based on their customers’ buying behavior. It will soon be the same for the booking of accommodation. The booking itself becomes an experience when users get an automatic suggestion for a specific hotel based on their previous booking behavior.

  • Market News

Three out of four vacationers fly with a guilty conscience: This emerges from a survey of the FUR market researchers as part of the «travel analysis». According to this, 73 percent of air travelers have a more or less bad conscience due to the climate impact. The requirements for stable demand are nevertheless given. «Flying shame» is the expression of an internal conflict, not its solution. Sustainability has become an important topic in Germany and the world with increasing attention. Tourism is not in a good position: On the one hand, certain offers are questionable because of their emissions or the resulting social burdens; on the other hand, holidays are classified as something unnecessary that people don’t really need. Sustainable approaches to tourism development tried to minimize negative effects on nature, the environment and society by amending the offers – but of course the customers should also want these sustainable offers. The results of the travel analysis on this topic showed that ecological and social sustainability are important to many German vacationers. This attitude is shared by more and more people. However, there are numerous other factors that influence travel decisions and travel behavior. The majority of tourists take a vacation trip mainly to spend nice holidays. Sustainability is taken into account and actively considered by some even during a specific trip.

German holiday demand stays high despite insolvencies and climate debate: Germans want to go on holiday just as much this year as in 2019 and have not been put off by, for example the Thomas Cook insolvency, according to the latest Reiseanalyse market survey. Demand for holidays remains stable at a very high level, and there are no signs of major changes in the most popular destinations or types of holidays, the provisional results of the annual in-depth representative consumer survey found. More than 60 percent of respondents said they had slightly more time and money to spend on travel this year, indicating a stable personal financial situation, and four out of five Germans (78 percent) are already thinking about their holiday plans. Overall, Germans are likely to remain loyal to their favourite destinations in 2020, although 42 percent plan to travel to a new country this year. About 30 percent (two percentage points more than last year) plan to go on holiday within Germany. The top foreign destinations are Spain, Italy, Turkey, Austria, Croatia and Greece. Demand for beach holidays, city trips, wellness breaks and cruises is also likely to remain stable this year. The positive outlook for 2020 follows a stable year in 2019. Germans went on about 71 million holiday trips in total, which was one percent more than the previous year. Spending rose by three percent to €73 billion. In addition, there were about 92 million short trips (2 – 4 days) with spending of about €25 billion.

Germany tourism is experiencing a constant upswing: Germany holidays are still trendy. The number of overnight stays reached the tenth record in a row in 2019. According to a current forecast by the Federal Statistical Office, the number of overnight stays by guests from Germany and abroad is expected to reach an all-time high of 494.7 million in 2019 (plus 3.5 percent – for comparison: 478 million in 2018). In the period from January to November 2019, hotels and pensions counted 464.7 million overnight stays. That was 3.7 percent more than in the same period in 2018. Domestic guests saw an increase of 3.9 percent to 381.1 million. The number of overnight stays by foreign travelers rose by 2.6 percent to 83.6 million. The industry has benefited from the fact that trips to Germany are trendy. There are also many business travelers and trade fair guests. The statisticians take into account accommodation establishments with at least ten beds.

Almost half of vacationers take advantage of early bird offers: According to a survey by the Insa Consular Institute on behalf of Dertour, 44 percent of those surveyed have already taken advantage of early bird offers due to cheap prices. Most of the bookings, however, tend to be in the medium term. 42 percent of travelers book one to five months in advance, another 31 percent between six and twelve months before departure. Long-term bookings account for four percent, short-term bookings up to four weeks before departure make up nine percent. As expected, the booking process depends heavily on the type of trip. Long-distance travel (41 percent) and beach holidays (35 percent) in particular are often booked with a long lead time; for cruises, the proportion of long-term bookings is 28 percent. Wellness (13 percent), hiking (11 percent) and skiing holidays (11 percent) are booked at short notice. While the expected price advantage (50 percent) plays the greatest role in the decision to book early, the focus is on securing the best accommodation for almost a third of those surveyed.

  • Tour Operator News

2019 closes with a slight minus: With the turn of the year, a strenuous year has passed for German travel agencies. The insolvency of Thomas Cook in particular has torn holes in the sales balance sheets. But the general demand for travel has not developed satisfactorily either. According to Tats-Reisebüro-Spiegel, which looks at the development of turnover by travel agencies, online portals and consolidators by calendar year, only cruises and turnover from rail, rental cars and own events exceed the prior year level. Overall, this results in a minus of 1.5 percent. Tourism closed the year with a decline of 1.3 percent. However, this would have been significantly higher if the capacities of the cruise lines had not been so large. This is why turnover in this sector increased. Last year, the deep-sea sector brought around 15 percent more cabins onto the market with new ships, thus achieving an increase in turnover of a good ten percent. However, it should be noted that prices have fallen slightly.

  • Aviation News 

Lufthansa Group Airlines welcome more than 145 million passengers on board in 2019: In 2019, the airlines of the Lufthansa Group carried a total of 145 million passengers on board. This represents an increase of 2.3 percent compared to the previous year. With around 1.2 million flights the seat load factor amounted 82.5 percent. This represents an increase of 1.0 percentage points. Both figures thus exceed the record figures of the previous year. The network airlines recorded an increase in the number of passengers in 2019, in particular at the hubs in Zurich (+5.7 percent), Vienna (+5.1 percent) and Munich (+2.5 percent). The number of passengers at the Frankfurt hub grew by 0.4 percent in 2019. In December 2019, the airlines of the Lufthansa Group welcomed around 10 million passengers on board their aircraft. This corresponds to a decrease of 0.3 percent over the same month last year.

Munich Airport reports 10th consecutive record-setting year: Munich Airport continues to pile up records: In 2019 total traffic increased by 1.7 million, or four percent, to 47.9 million passengers. That was the largest increase posted by any German airport last year. For the Bavarian hub, this result represents the tenth consecutive record-setting year for total passenger traffic. Airlines substantially increased the number of destinations served especially in the intercontinental segment, which saw a year-on-year rise of over six percent in take-offs and landings to a total of approximately 34,000 and an impressive nine percent increase in total passengers. These figures underscore Munich Airport’s growing strength as a hub. Traffic flows to Asia and the Americas are increasingly being funnelled through Munich. Among the beneficiaries of this development are travellers in the airport’s catchment area, who can choose from among non-stop services to a growing number of long-haul destinations. Based on current projections, and despite a downturn in economic indicators, passenger traffic at Munich Airport will remain on course for growth in 2020. This trend is likely to gain added impetus through Lufthansa’s decision to add new and attractive intercontinental routes. Additional connections announced by the German carrier for the coming summer timetable period include a new flight to Bangalore, India, as well as services to the US cities of Detroit and Seattle.The Lufthansa subsidiary Eurowings is also adding Las Vegas and Orlando to its list of destinations.

Frankfurt Airport loses market share: In total, almost 70.6 million passengers used Germany’s largest airportThis represents an increase of 1.5 percent compared to 2018. Germany’s largest hub is thus losing market share to other airports in Germany and Europe. Air traffic in Frankfurt developed unevenly last year. After a positive development in the first half of the year (plus 3.0 percent), traffic volume largely stagnated in the second half (plus 0.2 percent). And: In the months of November and December, passenger numbers declined for the first time since November 2016. Fraport’s CEO Stefan Schulte explains this development as follows: «The airlines’ reductions in services in the winter flight schedule have had a significant impact on passenger figures. After a long and exceptionally strong growth phase – we have gained almost ten million passengers in the past three years – we are currently feeling that the aviation industry is in a phase of consolidation.»

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