The current situation in which there is a near-complete shutdown of travel agency sales notwithstanding, German travel agents have released what the trade publication Touristik Aktuell called “the top demands from the counter”—an acknowledgement of the importance of the tradition-bound role of the retail travel agent who works at the counter in the brick-and-mortar agencies that are probably more of a fixture than in Germany than in any other national travel market of continental Europe.

And, by virtue of this market reality, it is something that U.S.-based receptive tour operators should always keep in mind when selling Visit USA product to Germany, which is the seventh largest source market (based on the latest year-to-date international arrival data from the U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Travel and Tourism Office (NTTO).

According to results of the survey by the QTA travel cooperative, travel agencies agreed that:

—There should be a minimum commission of ten percent on sales; and

—Elimination of minimum turnover provisions.

The two points above were two of the ten frequently mentioned requests and demands from the QTA alliance partner offices. The alliance had asked its offices in advance for upcoming discussions with the tour operators to share their most important demands as part of a survey. Following are the full Top 10.

1. At least ten percent basic commission. The QTA has already taken a first step in this context with TUI. As part of the new collective agreement, TUI grants travel agencies that have signed the contract a basic commission of ten percent.

2. The waiver of minimum sales.

3. Financial compensation for free cancellations. According to QTA, this is particularly important to the offices and also a consequence of the unpaid overtime work in recent months.

4. Multi-year commission models. They should provide more planning security with terms of at least two years.

5. Transfer commission payments when booking or at the latest for customer payments.

6. Better training concepts.

7. Greater participation and greater say in the organizers – be it in the form of advisory boards or idea pools.

8. Demand for support from the organizers in the introduction of service and consulting fees without affecting the commissions.

9. Easy booking of Quality Plus.

10. The continued existence of discounts for travel agents.

The QTA now wants to work on these ten points together with the organizers. The aim of the QTA project is to put partner travel agencies on a more stable economic foundation. “With the demands we have received a clear order from our travel agency partners for future negotiations with the tour operators,” QTA officials said in a statement.

According to QTA, the demands submitted are being used to meet the travel agencies’ legitimate request for changes and to create a new basis for fair cooperation between stationary sales and tour operators as partners in a common industry.

July Agency Sales not as Dismal as June’s: The total invoiced sales of the travel agencies recorded in the TATS Travel Agency Mirror* in July 2020 are minus 82.8 percent compared to the same month last year.

—Billed tourism turnover (or sales) shows a minus number of 75.5 percent in July. 

—Air traffic revenue was down 94.6 percent for the month. 

—Other sales are minus 73.4 percent.

—The number of tickets was minus 88.5 percent. Sales from the tourism sub-division cruises were minus 76.4 percent in July.

—Viewed cumulatively, the total invoiced travel agency turnover in the months from January to July is minus 69.3 percent. 

—Tourism recorded a minus of 64.9 percent.

— Air traffic recorded a minus of 75.1 percent. 

—The cruises segment recorded a drop of 55.4 percent.

—Other sales show a minus of 58.1 percent and the number of tickets a minus of 71.4 percent.

—Incoming orders for tourism are minus 117.8 percent compared to the month.

—The tourism order backlog by travel date up to October 2020 is minus 55.8%.

*The ta.ts—or TATS (Travel Agency Technologies and Services) travel agency mirror is widely regarded as a reliable barometer of the tourism industry’s financial health, providing, as it does, up-to-date data on Germany’s travel agency transactions every month.

To see the complete charts for the above numbers, visit https://www.ta-ts.de/reisebuerospiegel/

Perhaps the best measure of the state of the tour and travel industry in German is to review the latest data on sales/revenues. And the most recent numbers for the month of June are, at first glance, disheartening, but—following the absolute shock of a shutdown of travel that lasted four months of the lockdown of virtually all travel business activity in the wake of initial spread of the COVID-19—the industry is hopeful that it might see some upward direction of the figures.  

This hopeful outlook is driven by the lifting of land border checks between European countries. And then there was the beginning this month of a lifting of the EU travel ban inbound ban allowing many non-Europeans to visit Germany. But, yes, the numbers are still weak, very weak.

According to data from Frankfurt-based TATS (Travel Agency Technologies & Services), which provides automation, accounting, and data services for travel companies, leisure travel sales (including cruises) actually worsened last month. There was a year-on-year decline of 83 percent. Cruise bookings were down by nearly 78 percent in June, compared at a slightly better figure of -65 percent in May.

German Travel Agent Sales

June 2020 vs. June 2019

Sector	Performance vs. June 2019
Tourism (including cruises)	-83.2%
Cruises	-77.6%
Flights	-91.2%
Rail, Cars & Others	-76%
Overall	-85.89%

Source: TATS (Travel Agency Technologies & Services),

The Outlook: According to the TATs figures, the outlook for the near-term future is not encouraging. Advance leisure travel bookings were 156 percent lower in June compared to the same month last year, leaving a cumulative 164 percent decline in bookings with departures up to October.

Also: Industry rallies, gets financial break to help stay alive. Were the stark economic realities of the COVID-19-infected year of 2020 put into climatological teams, it might be described thus: “it is a dark, cold day.” Even so, the German travel market will restart and recover. The German tour and travel industry is the most closely watched and measured among all the travel economies of continental Europe, and those who study and analyze it—while certainly not sugar-coating their assessment of the situation—seem to suggest that it might reach pre-COVID-19 levels of activity by 2022.

While 2022 may seem like a distant speck on the horizon—and, by the way, what happened to 2021?—it is less than 18 months off, and much can happen, and should happen to get back to a level of business that was generally expected to be flat anyway. At least, this is the essence of Phocuswright’s latest Germany Travel Market Update.

Looking first at what is left of 2020, the study had this to say: “For the summer season, Phocuswright expects that many of the main destinations will open their borders to receive German tourists. But the downside for tour operators will be limited supply (beds and air tickets) and risk-averse travelers, which will suppress revenue. As a result, domestic travel is expected to see an upswing that might prevent the worst for German hospitality … However, it is primarily leisure hotels and hotels in urban tourist destinations that will reap the benefits. The major transportation mode will be by car, possibly providing the car rental segment some unexpected business.”

Adds the report: “The overall effects of the pandemic are projected to produce a 52 percent decline in total year-over-year gross bookings in 2020 …  Many travelers are likely to feel that booking via third parties (OTAs and tour operators) does not provide the security it once did (e.g., problems with cancelations and refunds). As a result, more people will book direct, especially because more detailed information on COVID-19 precautions is available on supplier websites (versus OTAs). This increased reliance on supplier websites will contribute to online penetration, while online supplier-direct bookings grow faster than OTAs. The recovery in gross bookings will be slow and see a slight upward tick in July during the summer holidays. However, 2019 levels will not be reached before 2022.”

Confirming the above was the lead article in the international edition of the authoritative German travel trade public, fvw, which said that “only about half of the German population plans to take a holiday trip this year while 19 percent do not have any plans yet,” according to a representative survey of 2,500 people (aged 14-75) conducted by the Kiel-based market research organization FUR (Forschungsgemeinschaft Urlaub und Reisen/Research Association for Vacation and Travel) for the online travel association VIR (Verband Internet Reisevertrieb.)

The 19 percent compares to January 2020, when another FUR survey found that 72 percent of German consumers “definitely or probably” planned to go on holiday this year. In 2019, 78 percent of the German population took a holiday trip of at least five days, according to FUR’s data.

Reflecting the new concern about hygiene and cleanliness among travelers, two thirds of survey respondents said that the destination and the accommodation must have top hygiene conditions, while 50 percent said the possibility of a rapid return if necessary is also important.

In Sum—It’s a Good Time to Stay Home: An earlier YouGov survey for Deutsche Presse-Agentur found that more than one-third (35 percent) of Germans are “not at all in a holiday mood this year” and 22 percent have “mixed feelings” about going on holiday. One in three expects their holiday to be affected by restrictions of some kind (including 54 percent of those who plan to go on holiday).

More than half (51 percent) of those surveyed do not yet have any plans to go on holiday this year. Of those who definitely plan a holiday, more than one-third (36 percent) want to travel within Germany while 30 percent plan to go abroad. And a third will either stay within their local region or even holiday at home.

It’s Timo Time: Finally, while the matter did not receive that much attention in the news media outside of Germany, the matter of the survival of the travel trade in Germany has been an intensely followed issue in the travel trade media. In Germany, for instance, it was a page one story in the print press and a lead item on broadcast news outlets. Everyone in Germany, for instance, was affected by a national demonstration on May 26 as travel agents and tour operators pressed for government action to help them in their plight.

Many in the United States followed the matter because of Timo Kohlenberg, president of America Unlimited, a tour operator based in Hannover, Germany. Kohlenberg, a well-known figure at major trade shows—his last U.S. event was the Connect Travel Marketplace in late February, a little more than a week before international travel essentially shut down—who cultivates an almost daily social media presence in the USA through thousands of Facebook friends and LinkedIn connections.

Last week, he provided what should be the final news update (in both English and German) on the tour and travel industry’s quest for government action: “I have been fighting for help from the government for specialist smaller tour operators and it finally happened and signed off for yesterday. There is a big economy program which was launched to help the economy get back to normal. As part of this package I had the government integrate a point that allows a German tour operators who suffers of a loss of at least 70 percent for the month of April and May to get a funding of 50K EUR ($56,200) per month for the month of June to August—so 150K ($168,600) in total). It’s not huge but it will help a lot of tour operators to cover the remaining costs for rent, salaries etc.”

Unless there is a major turnaround in the damage to visitation from the overseas markets of China and Brazil which is expected to be major, it is likely that Germany will begin 2021 as the Number 4 overseas source market for inbound tourism to the United States.

However, what the recent behavior of the market seems to tell us is that one won’t see dramatic shifts upward, nor will it experience a significant decline, either. A quick review of the information made available in the latest market profile for Germany released by the U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Travel and Tourism Office (NTTO) suggests that there is likely not to be much variation of travel to the U.S.

In fact, the number of visitors from German to the United States in 2019 was almost exactly the same as it was six years ago in 2014. The count was 2,064 last year, while it was 2,074 in 2014. The “sameness” has prevailed in what Germans like to do when the visit the United States. For the five-year period of 2015 through 2019, the top three activities of German visitors to America are the same: shopping, sightseeing and visiting national parks.

There are some shifts in activities and or in the purpose of their trip, but you have to look for nuances and what they mean if you are selling the German market.

So, in sum, do not expect much of a change of any sort in this market. And in the context of the mess that 2020 is, “not much of a change” will serve us well if we can get back to “more of the same” in 2021. Following are some selected tables from the NTTO market profile which, in some cases, we have slightly reformatted.

Notes on NTTO material: Only country and world region destinations having a sample size consistently of 100 or more are displayed. Visitation incidence was rounded to two decimal places in NTTO source files beginning in 2014 to reduce artificial ‘jumpiness’ in the data caused by rounding to only one decimal places, especially for destinations having incidence of less than two percentage points.  Due to quarterly data weighting by country and port of entry, some unreported destinations may have a higher proportion of total than those reported.

For additional information, visit https://travel.trade.gov/