Even though January is generally the top month for travel sales in Germany, travel agents in the country realized a one percent drop in winter revenues last month, reports the German travel trade publication FVW, and summer 2017 bookings were stuck at last year’s level—a level that was a poor one for the industry, with its year-on-year slump.
The numbers, which came from the regular monthly analysis by the Nuremberg-based marketing research firm GfK, followed strong months in November and December during which, FVW said, “Germans snapped up bargain offers and took advantage of early booking discounts.” The GfK’s analysis is based on bookings in 1,500 representative travel agencies.
As a result, according to GfK, summer 2017 sales are now running 6 percent ahead of last year on a cumulative basis, but which is down from a 10 percent growth rate in December.
At the same time, the overall 2016/17 tourism year is still showing a small sales increase of 1 percent on a cumulative basis, with the 6 percent summer growth outweighing a 4 percent decline in winter season sales, according to the GfK figures.
Commenting on the numbers, Dörte Nordbeck, head of Travel & Logistics Germany at GfK, observed: “We assume that some holidaymakers have learned from last year’s (capacity) bottlenecks and the resulting price increases, and have booked their summer holidays even earlier than usual this year.”
