Balance sheet of the Tölzer spa committee: decline in the number of overnight stays

Created: 04/20/2022, 08:52

Bad Tölz had to accept a dramatic decline in overnight stays in the pandemic years 2020 and 2021.

Only the camper place at the reservoir was mostly well occupied.

© Karl Bock

Bad Tölz – Compared to 2019, the city has seen a drop in guest arrivals of over 46 percent and overnight stays by 33 percent.

The corona pandemic has also had a severe impact on tourism in Bad Tölz.

The unsurprising figures have now been announced by spa director Brita Hohenreiter in the city council's spa and tourism committee.

Compared to 2020, there was another drop of seven percent in arrivals and 3.6 percent in overnight stays.

"The hosts were hit very hard again," summed up Hohenreiter, "the houses were empty even without a lockdown".

The expectations for the previous year had looked very different.

Great hopes were placed in 2021 after politicians had announced easing at short notice.

The bad weather initially prevented a rapid start to the tourism year.

It was the end of June before business with guests really picked up: holiday apartments were quickly fully booked until October, and hotels and guesthouses followed suit.

"We had so many guests who had made short-term bookings and were looking for accommodation," said the spa director.

Cyclists who rode on the Bodensee-Königsdorf cycle path and had not reserved a room had to be sent to Geretsried.

At the end of the year everything looked different again: because of the Omikron wave, the Leonhardi ride and the Christmas market were cancelled,

Despite the decline: length of stay increased

In the case of accommodation establishments, only the operators of hotels and holiday apartments recorded almost the same occupancy as in 2020;

in sanatoriums and guesthouses, on the other hand, there was a further decline.

The bed occupancy of all houses fell from 44 percent three years ago to just 30 percent in the previous year.

"This is catastrophic," said Hohenreiter.

However, the average length of stay of a guest increased from 4.3 to 5.3 days - "that is as high as it has been for years."

There was also good news: the RV park on the Isar was more frequented in 2021 than ever before.

The city counted 11,898 parking units, almost 2,000 more than in 2013. "From May the parking space was full to the brim," said the spa director.

In addition to the pandemic, the tourism industry is also struggling with the lack of staff.

The shortage of skilled workers is "on an unprecedented scale", according to Hohenreiter in its extensive annual report.

In larger houses, this has led to an "artificial capacity shortage" in rooms, "two providers did not open their houses at all".

From May, many accommodations are already fully booked

For the current year 2022, things are not looking bad at first.

"As of May, we have just received the message from many smaller hotels that they are fully booked for the rest of the year." However, Hohenreiter does not want to spread too much optimism.

There are too many uncertain factors for that: the high energy costs due to the Ukraine war, the increased minimum wage, skyrocketing purchase prices and the pandemic that is not yet over.

In addition, some houses want to make their rooms available for Ukrainian refugees, which further reduces the number of rooms available.

In the future, the spa director is pinning her hopes on the new boutique hotel, which is to be built in place of the Greek restaurant at the Oberbräu on Marktstraße, and on the Bergeblick project by investor Johannes Tien on the Wackersbergerhöhe, which will open in spring 2023 (we reported) .