High response to #DiscoverGermanyFromHome

Overall, we have seen a surprisingly high response to DiscoverGermanyFromHome. We have reached about 10 million users within six weeks and registered more than a million interactions through our channels. Beyond these channels, 19,000 posts relating to the campaign have been published, which in turn triggered 200,000 interactions. This shows that the majority of our customers still have an appetite for travel.

The RecoveryCheck#2 analysis recently published by the centre for tourism at the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi) underlines the need to maintain interest in Destination Germany. Its findings show that international tourism will recover more slowly than domestic tourism.

Recent developments in Austria, where the hotel industry is reopening at the end of May, are encouraging. They will allow further steps towards getting the tourism market back on its feet, although our neighbour’s tourism assets and infrastructure is somewhat different to ours.

In addition to the purely commercial aspects, I am also looking at how we can inspire potential customers through our tourism marketing, what type of experiences our products will promise and how we can keep these promises.

A study by the Copenhagen Institute for Future Studies on scenarios for the future of tourism after the coronavirus crisis, which the GNTB commissioned jointly with the Association of National Tourist Office Representatives (ANTOR) in Denmark, provides some starting points. Attached is a summary(PDF, 11.21 MB) which is definitely worth reading.

The Der Corona-Effekt white paper published by Zukunftsinstitut in Frankfurt presents four highly interesting future scenarios (German only) . Scenario four describes a resilient society that explicitly deals with the role of cities in the post-coronavirus era.

Both papers form a good basis for an intensive dialogue with our partners on the question of what comes next.

The conclusion we can draw from both is this:

We need a rethink. ‘Glocalisation’ as a synthesis of thinking global and acting locally is set to become a recurring theme of our day-to-day work in international tourism.

What is certain is that the product segments in which Destination Germany has been particularly strong at attracting international guests will be disproportionately affected by current developments.

As one of the top ten destinations in the world (UNWTO 2018), it is vital that we make every effort to defend this position and the success we have shared so far.

Let me outline three aspects of our current market position.

City Breaks/Events – strong on both cultural and business travel

Cities are the backbone of inbound tourism to Germany, and their share of the market is increasing. The ten Magic Cities alone accounted for around 29 per cent of international overnight stays in 2019. If you add in Berlin, that figure rises to around 47 per cent.

Inbound tourism is more than just an add-on, a nice-to-have, especially in cities of over 100,000 inhabitants that attract lot of visitors. Here, international guests account for 33 per cent of all overnight stays, significantly above the national average of 18 per cent.

Berlin tops the list of German city destinations, generating over 15 million international overnight stays, followed by Munich (8.8 million) and Frankfurt (4.7 million). In all three cities, international overnight stays account for more than 40 per cent of the total volume. This clearly shows that many cities will not be able to achieve sustainable capacity utilisation and tourism revenues without inbound tourism.

Among the strongest arguments in favour of inbound tourism in cities and metropolitan regions are easy access via Germany’s major international airports, the outstanding quality of the German hotel industry, the wide range of cultural offerings and the attractiveness for business travellers.

But it is precisely these aspects that are particularly affected by the lockdown, and current assessments of the situation show no signs of a rapid recovery.

As many destinations are so reliant on international visitors, they will have to continue to put all their efforts into business development in the respective source markets. Inbound tourism has a strong impact on the retail trade, especially in these destinations, and German holidaymakers alone cannot compensate for a lack of high-spending international visitors.

Business travel – coronavirus is causing increasing concern

According to a special analysis of IPK International’s World Travel Monitor conducted in 2019, the global market for international business travel has already grown at a much slower rate (7 per cent) over the past three years than the total market for all international travel (17 per cent). The drop of 4 per cent in the traditional business travel segment has been compensated for by strong growth in MICE travel (up 16 per cent).

In this context, Germany was able to consolidate and expand its leading position as a business travel destination in the international market, as the volume of traditional business travel remained largely stable and MICE travel grew significantly.

At the same time, the proportion of business trips in all inbound travel is exceptionally high at 22 per cent, whereas the European average is 12 per cent. For competitors such as the UK (15 per cent), France (11 per cent) and Italy (9 per cent), the weakening in the market has a much smaller impact on the balance sheet.

Virtual meetings, video conferences, Skype calls, etc. have become the norm as a result of the coronavirus outbreak. These experiences are likely to have an impact on business communications even once the crisis is over, and there are considerable doubts over whether traditional business travel will recover to previous levels.

I believe this also applies to promotable business travel. Germany clearly leads the way: in 2018, 10.2 per cent of all MICE travel worldwide was to Germany, ahead of the USA in second place with a 9.2 per cent share of the market. Other key MICE destinations such as China (6.6 per cent), France (5.2 per cent) and the UK (4.7 per cent) are a long way behind. If social distancing is here to stay for the foreseeable future, then large events – often with more than 1,000 participants – are unlikely to be happening any time soon. This will lead to heavier losses, in percentage terms, for this area of inbound tourism.

The dialogue we have initiated with the umbrella organisations GCB and AUMA for this important inbound segment shows that further investigation, research and development are necessary. Concepts such as the ‘Future Meeting Space’, which was developed in cooperation with the tourism industry and the Fraunhofer Institute, must be continued.

Cultural tourism – the virus is reducing the range of what is on offer

Of the 35.8 million holiday trips to Germany taken by Europeans in 2019, 16.3 million (46 per cent) were city breaks, 5.4 million (15 per cent) were multi-destination tours with city visits, and 1.8 million (5 per cent) were to attend an event.

Germany leads the ranking of cultural travel destinations for Europeans. More than 6,000 museums, the world’s highest number of opera performances, famous festivals from Bayreuth to Oberammergau, 46 UNESCO World Heritage sites and many other USPs characterise Destination Germany’s core brand and offer new travel opportunities for international cultural tourists year after year. Prior to the coronavirus outbreak, around one million events every year attracted visitors to Germany.

A significant share of the cultural tourism offering is currently unavailable. In some areas, such as theatre performances and concerts or festivals and fairs that draw large crowds, I expect that strict hygiene rules or a code of contact will see these events gradually return to our offering once the lockdown has ended.

Thinking ‘next normal’ – developing specific ideas

We need innovative products if we want to keep our towns and cities interesting in these new circumstances. The fact that it has been the tourism players in the cities, in particular, who over decades have contributed to the development of new forms of holidays through their ideas and innovations, is a cause for optimism.

The GNTB is currently engaged in an in-depth dialogue with its partners to drive these innovation processes forward.

Given the new circumstances we find ourselves in as a result of coronavirus, the onus is on us to join forces with everyone in Germany’s inbound tourism industry to develop ideas for new products and services that will inspire potential travellers to rediscover Germany.

We can shape the ‘next normal’ through active crisis management, close customer contact, agile and digital product ideas, and the power of acting as one.

Looking ahead – what is possible today

We held our first joint webinar with our partners last week to explain the situation with market insights on Germany as a travel destination, and the USA as a sample source market. Further events in this format will follow, with insights from the Asian source markets on 6 May, for example. Click here for more information and ways to take part (German only).

From next week, we will be joining the Association of German Chambers of Industry and Commerce (DIHK) on a series of webinars for the tourism industry exploring the challenges of the coronavirus crisis.

They will kick off at 4pm on 6 and 7 May with a live feed on Facebook.

The topic for the DIHK webinar on Wednesday, 6 May, will be ‘Restructuring during the coronavirus crisis – from creditor protection proceedings to self-administration’.

The topic for the GNTB webinar on Thursday, 7 May, will be ‘Apps and more – what makes Chinese customers tick, and what technologies can companies use to maintain a presence after the crisis?’

There is one more date that I particularly want to highlight: starting on 22 June, we will be running a three-day virtual Germany Travel Mart (GTM) as a bridge to the recovery programmes for 2021 and the next ‘real-world’ GTM. Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania will be the host of the ‘real-world’ GTM in 2021, but this year it will be presenting itself as a destination in webinars. For more information on the virtual GTM, click here (German only).

The next Future Day for Destinations, an initiative of the Tourismuszukunft network, is just around the corner, and we will certainly be there this coming Monday. Will you be there too? Find out more (German only).

That brings me to the end of my weekly review and look ahead.

In my next post, I will focus on nature and sustainability in a segment of Destination Germany in an international context.

Please stay safe, and I wish you all a relaxing long weekend.

Until next week.

Petra Hedorfer