The nerves of just about everyone who is still a part of the travel and tourism industry in Germany are really frayed right now. As the data below seem to suggest, German travelers seem(ed) determined to take a holiday somewhere this autumn or, if that doesn’t materialize, sometime next year.

Then, just as October arrived, came the news that Germany and other key European country markets, including the UK, France, Spain and Italy have

 re-imposed some form of a strict lockdown of their citizens in an effort to put a check on the alarming increase in COV ID-19 cases. In most instances, the lockdowns will be in effect for at least a month, although that could be adjusted.

Before all of this happened, the professionals in the German travel trade were becoming more vocal, and even had another march on Berlin to loudly protest their dire situation.

Before all this, there was a sense that things might be getting better.  

Following is an Oct. 30 post by the Nuremberg-based Travel Data Analytics. While the commentary does not include references to long-haul overseas travel by Germans (due to travel bans wrought by the global pandemic), it does measure and project with regard to regional activity so that one can project trends based on such activity.

In the booking month of September 2020, the upcoming autumn holidays were the focus of German citizens. There was particularly strong demand for vacation trips to Greece and Germany, and Portugal, Italy and Austria also performed comparatively well. However, the fact that many top travel destinations cannot be booked due to existing travel warnings and the associated high cancellation rates mean that the booking revenues generated in September for the current 2020 summer season fall to 12 percent of the previous year’s volume.

The current seasonal balances for the booking status as of the end of September 2020: The current summer season shows a cumulative fall in sales of 78 percent compared to the previous year. This is four percentage points more than in the previous month. The upcoming 2020/21 winter season will lose seven percentage points compared to the previous month. In the previous booking month of September, the cancellations superimposed sales with new bookings, so that the sales balance is now minus 66 percent compared to the previous winter. Central winter destinations such as the Canary Islands, Egypt and long-distance travel destinations are missing in the winter business. The coming months will only tell whether bookings for long-haul destinations will increase with the lifting of the worldwide travel warning on October 1st. (Travel bans have mostly been re-imposed.)

Another ten percent (in terms of sales) trusted in being able to spend a winter holiday in the Canaries – and rightly so, because the travel warning for the Canaries was lifted on October 22nd. In the booking month of September, Germany was still the preferred destination for a vacation trip in the coming winter months with a turnover share of almost 25 percent. This could change in the coming weeks when more sun destinations become bookable again.

The outlook for the summer season next year also remains cautiously optimistic. In terms of sales, three percent more holiday trips were booked for the travel period from May to October 2021 in September 2020 than in the same month of the previous year. Including the rebooked summer holidays from this year, the 2021 summer season currently has more than twice as high a sales volume as in the previous year.

Focus on Autumn Holidays German citizens*

Departure Months Booked in September 2020

Revenue from new bookings, stationary and online, booked in September

Season/Time of Year	Percentage of Total Market
September/October 2020	59%
Winter 2020/21	14%
Summer 2021 and after	27%

* Caution; the language in this table depended on a google translation.

Growth Rate Compared to the Previous Year

Season, Time of Year	Booking Status
Summer 2020	-78%
Last booking month	-88%
Winter 2020/21	-66%

 * Caution; the language in this table depended on a google translation.

The tables above are based on a chart that showed the cumulative travel sales generated by the end of September 2020 for the 2020 summer season and the coming 2020/21 winter season compared to the previous year. Holiday travel bookings in stationary travel agencies as well as online on the travel portals of tour operators and online travel agencies (OTAs) with a focus on package tours are included. The first table shows what percentage of sales in the booking month September are attributable to the individual travel months or seasons.

Note: Holiday sales that had definitely not been left due to cancellations by the organizers were adjusted in the balance sheets at TDA Travel Intelligence at the end of the respective travel month. As of now, this affected all trips canceled until the end of September 2020.

About TDA Travel Intelligence: Travel Data + Analytics GmbH (TDA), founded by Dr. Markus Heller, took over the tourism retail panel “Travel Insights” from GfK in April 2019 and continues it as “TDA Travel Intelligence”. It is based on the booking data of around 1,750 travel agencies, which represent the stationary sales market in Germany. In addition, the booking data of the classic travel portals and the tour operators are recorded in the online area. Extrapolated to the overall market, the evaluations by TDA Travel Intelligence allow reliable conclusions to be drawn about the booking and travel behavior of German vacationers. Current trends and developments in the tourism market can be tracked promptly. 

For further information: Alexandra Weigand, alexandra.weigand@traveldataanalytics.de.

For additional information about TDA, visit: https://traveldataanalytics.de/en/

There is also this—the ta.ts travel agency* mirror:

—The total invoiced turnover of German travel agencies recorded in the “ta.ts travel agency mirror” in October 2020 was minus 88.4 percent compared to the same month last year.

—The billed tourism turnover shows a minus of 82.2 percent in October. The turnover in air traffic recorded a minus of 96.5 percent for the month. The other sales are minus 76.0 percent and the number of tickets is down 93.9 percent

—Year to date: Viewed cumulatively, the total invoiced travel agency turnover in the months from January to October was down 75.2 percent. Tourism recorded a minus of 71.1 percent while air traffic declined by 81.5 percent. 

* – ta.ts = Travel Agency Technologies & Services, which is based in Frankfurt

Forget the rest of 2020. The generation that makes up what German travel industry analysts call the “best age” for traveling—the 50-to-70-plus segment of the country’s population—is, as Americans would say, “pumped up” for travel next year. This is one of the conclusions one draws from the results of a recent survey commissioned by the Frankfurt-based tour operator trendtours Touristik.

In fact, says the survey, more than half (61 percent) of those surveyed are staying with their holiday plans for 20201. Yes, despite the impact of the coronavirus-generated global pandemic that has virtually stopped long-haul air service to and from Germany and, at the same time, blunted travel to and among European countries, the desire of the “Best Agers” to travel remains strong.

Despite the corona pandemic, the best agers’ desire to travel remains unbroken. 61 percent of those surveyed are planning a vacation trip in the coming year. This was the result of a representative survey by the market research institute YouGov, which was carried out on behalf of trendtours Touristik among 1,632 people.

More than one in four people in Germany are now aged 60 or over.

Other key findings of the survey:

—54 percent of those between the ages of 50 and 70+ who would like to travel in the coming year are sticking to their travel plans for 2021.

—12 percent not only want to make up for the vacation they missed this year, but also want to make another trip. 

—Most of the participants in the study, 56 percent, want to travel abroad in 2021.

—43 percent of those who want to travel are planning a vacation trip within Europe.

—35 percent want to go on a trip in Germany within the coming year.

—13 percent are planning a long-distance trip. 

—Proximity to a hospital and the availability of a German-speaking doctor do not play a role for most when choosing a travel destination, with only 17 percent of people aged 70+ saying that their booking behavior had changed due to the corona to the effect that the quality of the healthcare system had become more relevant for them when planning their vacation. 

—Interestingly, the 17 percent are only one percentage point above the 50-to-59-year-olds (16 percent) and even one percentage point below the 60-to-69-year-olds (18 percent).

Observed Markus Daldrup, chairman of trendtours Touristik, a tour operator specializing in best ager trips in Germany, “The survey shows that the 50+ generation is still keen to travel despite the ongoing pandemic. That gives us hope that the booking trend will recover as soon as it is possible to travel again,”

A note on methodology: The data used were based on an online survey by YouGov Deutschland GmbH, in which 1,632 people took part between September 25 and 30, 2020. The results were weighted and are representative of the German population aged 50 and over.

When one reviews the available new data on sales volume in the retail travel industry in Germany—data sets for travel and tourism simply aren’t available for the wholesale or tour operator sub sectors—there is one, just one, impression or interpretation of the information that is in the remotest way positive. And that is: the numbers for the month of September were about the same as they were for the month of August. In other words, it didn’t get any worse.

It’s pretty much the same assessment for the wholesale-long-haul segment of the industry. The German travel trade publication fvw tells us that just 5 percent of Germans are planning a foreign holiday this autumn “amid calls from politicians for people to stay within the country to avoid coronavirus.” It’s difficult to tell, based on what data there are, if there are that many German travelers planning the same or otherwise.

Back to the latest travel agency numbers:

—The total invoiced turnover of the travel agencies recorded in the ta.ts travel agency mirror* in September 2020 was minus 84.2 percent compared to the same month last year.

—The billed tourism turnover shows a minus of 77.9 percent in September. 

—The turnover in air traffic registered a minus of 94.7 percent for the month. 

—The turnover from the tourism sub-division cruises was down 78.3 percent.

— “Other” sales were minus 70.5 percent.

—The number of tickets recorded was is minus 88.8 percent.

Viewed cumulatively, the total invoiced travel agency turnover in the months from January to September was minus 73.5 percent. 

—Tourism recorded a minus of 69.3 percent.

—Air traffic recorded a minus 79.7 percent.

— “Other” sales had a minus of number of 60.8 percent.

—The number of tickets showed a minus of 75.3 percent. 

—The cruises segment recorded a decrease of 62.8 percent.

Below, INBOUND presents the data in a tabular format.

* – Travel Agency Technologies & Services, which is based in Frankfurt

Better than any assessment that the INBOUND Report could offer regarding the state of the travel and tourism industry in Germany is this past month’s travel agency index put out by the Munich-based business consulting firm, Dr. Fried & Partner. It showed the index at a near all-time low of 66.2, which is lower than it was in August. No agent surveyed described their status as “good,” while the percentage of “bad” responses had risen to 97.2 percent from last month’s 93.2 percent. The number of travel agents who, compared to last year, had sales of travel services that had fallen significantly in the last 2-3 months, totaled 96.5 percent of travel agencies indicating such; this was even more than in August when 94.8 percent indicated a decline of sales compared to 2019.

One has to rely on figures involving travel agencies, rather than those concerning tour operators, because the travel trade and leading tour operators have already conceded, it seems, that 2020 is a lost year for their business.

More than any other European market, Germany has suffered the full force of the impact of the coronavirus-driven global pandemic—from the shutdown of all borders in the EU till July 1st, followed by selective bans on varied countries since that time. The latter have hurt those agencies and operators who feature packages to favored destinations throughout the continent.

Airline Lift Capacity is Nil: Because long-haul air traffic has been effectively non-existent for six months, there has been no promotion of international travel or Visit USA product. And a return to pre-coronavirus traffic levels are not expected to return for several years. The situation is particularly dicey for Germany, whose de facto national carrier, Lufthansa—it is the largest German airline which, when combined with its subsidiaries, is the second largest airline in Europe in terms of passengers carried—has been teetering near total collapse.

The carrier recently announced a third round of job cuts on top of 22,000 announced since the start of the coronavirus crisis. Lufthansa, which received a government bailout of €9 billion ($10.5 billion) in June, said it would have to realize €1.1 billion ($1.3 billion) in impairment over its fleet decisions.

Usually, if one is looking for an answer as to where the industry is going, one looks at what the major operators are doing. And there, the situation is hardly encouraging. For instance, after earlier announcing its intention to try to move some 2020-21 product in the last quarter of 2020, TUI—the largest tour operator in Germany, Europe and the world—announced that it is reducing capacities in winter to around 40 percent of the original offer. (The TUI Group announced this in advance of the publication of the full-year results.) This action followed a decline of 83 percent in bookings this past summer. For the coming summer 2021, TUI plans to offer 80 percent of the originally planned capacity.

Meanwhile, Ingo Burmester, CEO Central Europe for DER Touristik, the number two market leader in German, said that he expects lower prices for destinations with weaker demand. “We will pass this on to our customers,” he said. DER Touristik is now accepting bookings for all of its 84 own-brand hotels as well as many other hotels for summer 2021, enabling families to make very early bookings for school summer holiday dates at discounted prices.

There seems to be a consensus in the industry that next year—for those who make it there—will bring about stable, if not cheaper, prices for the inventory that is/will be available.

With the 2020 calendar year about two thirds along on its journey to 2021, the recent fvw Kongress, sponsored by the German travel trade publication fvw, seemed to be a logical point at which the travel and tourism industry in the country—it has long been among the top five overseas international source markets for the U.S.—could assess its condition.

Midst all the presentations and discussion during the virtual gathering, one got the sense that domestic tourism within Germany was the only hope for tour operators and travel agents for salvaging any type of meaningful business for the year. Intra-European travel by Germans has been hampered by episodic bans on travel, especially among some traditional summer holiday travel destinations. And long-haul, overseas travel has been non-existent, as travel bans and airline capacity have made this travel sector essentially inactive.

As a result, one impression left by the Kongress was that the rest of 2020 offered limited opportunities for a clean-up operation. The focus instead, was on product and turnover in 2021.

Measuring the Collapse: So far-reaching has been the coronavirus-driven global pandemic and its impact on the world’s tourism industry is that, in Germany, even some traditional sources for information have not been able to publish or produce reliable numbers on the performance of the industry.

What data that do exist have not been encouraging. In the latest monthly edition of the ta.ts travel agency mirror (it is prepared by the Frankfurt-based Travel Agency Technologies & Services) tells us that the total invoiced turnover of the travel agencies recorded in the “Agency Mirror” for August 2020 was minus 83.8 percent, compared to the same month last year. Other data points from the report include the following:

—The billed tourism turnover shows a minus of 74.4 percent in August.

—Sales in air traffic recorded a minus of 99.6 percent.

—The “other sales” totaled minus 69.3 percent; and

—The number of tickets was minus 92.1 percent.

—The turnover from the tourism sub-division cruises in August was minus 75.7 percent.

Viewed cumulatively, the total invoiced travel agency turnover lies in the eight months from January to

August:

—Amounted to minus 71.5 percent;

—Tourism recorded a minus 67.0 percent;  

—Air traffic recorded a minus 77.9 percent;

—“Other” sales show a minus of 59.6 percent;

—The number of tickets registered a decrease of 73.8 percent; and

—The cruises segment recorded a minus of 59.2 percent.