The corona crisis is causing uncertainty and the consequences of Thomas Cook's bankruptcy have not yet been fully overcome. Times have become tougher for the successful travel industry.
Frankfurt / Main (dpa) - The tourism industry is increasingly feeling the effects of the corona crisis. The travel professionals do not yet want to write off the year. The head of the industry association DRV reported on Thursday of increasing uncertainty among customers and an increased need for advice.
Trips to Asia in particular show a "certain reluctance to book," said Norbert Fiebig a few days before the start of the ITB travel fair in Berlin (March 4-8). The industry hopes that bookings will be rescheduled later with a strong last minute deal.
People in Germany are basically in a holiday mood. "The longer the crisis persists, the more the travel industry will be affected," said Fiebig. Forecasts on the development of sales and bookings are currently not possible. "I personally do not expect a catastrophic development, so that no one goes on vacation," said Fiebig. He was fundamentally confident that "we would have a decent year".
So far, however, business with the most beautiful weeks of the year has started rather slowly. Bookings for the traditionally high-sales summer season were reported to be three percent below the previous year's period by the end of January. "The figures show that the gap that Thomas Cook has left in the market has not yet been completely filled," said Fiebig. The German Thomas Cook had filed for bankruptcy at the end of September 2019 after the British mother. Tens of thousands of vacationers were affected.
Winter 2019/2020 and summer 2020 taken together, bookings currently also show a minus of three percent. The industry is hopeful that the bookings for the summer rose in January - despite the virus Sars-CoV-2 becoming known in China in mid-January.
In some cases, however, the tour operators themselves pull the ripcord because of the corona virus: In view of the epidemic in Iran, the travel provider Studiosus announced on its website that all trips to Iran that existed until the end of April were canceled. However, the latest military tensions are also an obstacle here.
The corona virus crisis could also put a damper on tourism in Germany. The epidemic could lead to a drop in the number of overnight stays by foreign travelers by up to one percentage point this year, the German National Tourist Board (DZT) recently said. According to the GNTB, the consequences of the current spread in Europe cannot yet be predicted.
Last year, hotels, guest houses and other accommodations between Rügen and Garmisch-Partenkirchen had the tenth record in a row for overnight stays.
According to the DRV, the most booked summer destination for tour operator trips, which sun-seekers traditionally rely on when traveling abroad, is Greece again this year, followed by Turkey. Ranks three and four are followed by the Balearic Islands and the Canaries, followed by Egypt. Spain as a whole remains the unchallenged number one as it has been for years - despite current declines for the upcoming summer season.
In the past year, the industry, which also had to fight with the insolvency of the airline Germania, lost pace. Expenditures for vacation and private trips increased by 3.6 percent to 98.1 billion euros. Services worth 69.5 billion euros (plus 3.6 percent) were booked in advance.
Organized travel sales - package and package deals - only increased slightly by one percent to EUR 35.4 billion after the strong previous year. The growth came mainly from cruises, which grew by 7 percent. Revenue in travel agencies fell by around three percent to EUR 23.7 billion.
In contrast, the importance of self-organized trips grew. Vacationers do not book complete packages from organizers, but individual components from airlines, train, hotel and car rental providers, as well as on product portals. In total, these expenses amounted to 34 billion euros last year. "Even if the self-organized trip continues to grow, the package tour is again the most popular form of travel for Germans last year," said Fiebig.
