Tourism change in the Ammertal: Goodbye Chinese and Americans

The tourism balance for the Corona year 2020 shows one thing clearly: The Ammertal must reposition itself for the future in terms of tourism.

German holidaymakers have increased almost tenfold, while Americans and Chinese have stayed out almost entirely.

Oberammergau

- Corona is changing the world.

The virus from China is reshuffling all cards.

Also in tourism in the Ammer Valley.

Florian Hoffrohne, managing director of the association and the Ammergau Alps Nature Park, is certain that this will change.

On Monday he published the tourism balance in Ammertal for 2020 with a slight delay.

Fortunately, considering the numbers, there was no shock.

“The balance sheet isn't all that tragic,” he says.

“We knew roughly what to expect.” And indeed: it did not go down drastically in contrast to the previous year.

A good sign, after all, 2019 was an absolute record year with 866,705 overnight stays.

But with the 2020 balance sheet, Hoffrohne asks: "Where should we go?"

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Fewer guests who stay longer: The number of nights and arrivals.

© Graphic Ammergau Alps

To the bare numbers: Despite Corona, there were a total of 625 271 overnight stays in Ammertal.

Only a third was lost in the record year 2019.

“That's okay,” confirms Hoffrohne.

Between the two lockdowns, from late May to mid-October, the numbers were splendid.

In Oberammergau, overnight stays fell by “only” around 90,000 to 302,000 compared to the previous year. Only Ettal / Linderhof as well as Saulgrub, Altenau and Wurmansau had real losses.

There the numbers almost halved.

Fewer vacationers who stayed longer

In contrast, there were only 135,110 arrivals in total - the annual average between 2017 and 2019 was 242,941 - almost halving. This means that fewer guests came, but stayed longer. Most of the guests in 2020 came - unsurprisingly - from Germany, especially from Bavaria, North Rhine-Westphalia and Baden-Württemberg. Unusual for the Ammertal. In terms of tourism it has so far differed enormously from the other valley communities in the Garmisch-Partenkirchen district. The spa and vacation guests from the Ruhr area who rented a classic vacation hotel for three weeks were rare. Over the decades, an unprecedented “passion tourism” has developed, as Hoffrohne explains. Every ten years there is an exceptional situation. 2020,When the Passion was supposed to have taken place, all 7000 beds in the Ammertal were almost 100 percent booked out. “We had to look for free beds in the surrounding villages, wringing our hands.” After the rejection, the guests came anyway. "They wanted to see the Passion Play and the village."

Important international market collapsed entirely

Another market completely collapsed due to Corona: Between the passion years, the Ammertal also specialized in international guests. Before the corona crisis, an average of 12 to 15 buses arrived every day - full of international guests, mainly from China and the USA. They don't just love the place of passion. Linderhof Palace and Ettal Abbey are also very popular. A huge market has opened up. While in 2014 there were 1,000 overnight stays by guests from Asia in the Ammergau Alps, this mark exploded to a whopping 13,300 in 2015 - an increase of 750 percent. Bad Kohlgrub, Ettal and Oberammergau in particular benefited from the boom. In the hotels there, the groups from all over the world felt in excellent hands,because these houses are perfectly set up for unusual special requests.

In future, the focus must be placed on the German holidaymaker

It is precisely here that Hoffrohne sees discrepancies.

Since the foreign guests have broken away due to the pandemic and will probably not come for a long time, many hotels are now having a hard time with the classic German vacationers who discovered the Ammertal for themselves last year in search of relaxation.

For comparison: while in the previous year only around 15,400 guests from North Rhine-Westphalia came to Ammertal, in 2020 there were over 90,400 - an increase of 83 percent.

Foreign guests, on the other hand, were rare due to travel bans and protective measures.

In 2020, most of them came from the Netherlands and other neighboring countries.

Compared to 2019, when the US and Chinese dominated the foreign share, the tourist hostels will have to focus more on German guests who stay longer, says Hoffrohne.

This was the direction in which it was made a nature park in 2018.

It should be sustainable tourism in the future.

The visitor must be better directed, and the care of the cultural landscape and environmental education must come more to the fore.