Holiday sales in German travel agencies grew by 6.6% last month, breaking a five-month downward trend, according to a monthly survey by market researchers GfK.
The sales increase, which follows a similar 6.7% growth figure in the monthly survey by IT services firm TATS, could signal a long-awaited recovery in demand after five months of falling sales, experts believe.
The 6.6% growth figure for April means that cumulative sales for summer 2016 are now ‘only’ 6% behind last year’s levels, compared to -9% in January. In terms of individual departure months, July is the only month with higher sales than last year while August is a dramatic 18% behind 2015 levels.
However, these figures mean it will be difficult for summer 2016 sales to recover sufficiently to return to 2015 levels, according to GfK. About €480 million worth of revenues are still ‘missing’ and only 64% of summer 2015 revenues have so far been reached for this year.
The winter 2015/16 season closed with a slight 1% increase in travel agency revenues, according to the GfK survey. One sign of hope is the high level of early bookings for next winter. Advance bookings are up by 24%, and winter 2016/17 revenues already accounted for nearly 17% of total revenues last month.
Islamic destinations to disappear
Meanwhile, German tourism industry managers expect Germany to benefit most from the continuing drop in demand for eastern Mediterranean destinations while Muslim countries will continue to face challenging times. A survey by the Tourism Industry Club (TIC), whose members are mostly top managers and other decision-makers, found that an overwhelming 94% of 186 respondents believe the recent drop in demand is due to fear of travelling following terror attacks in various destinations.
A high 58% expect ‘Islamic’ countries to increasingly disappear from the tourism map. As many as 42% believe this could include Turkey, while 63% do not believe that the destination will make a recovery in the short term. Similarly, 60% do not expect Egypt to prove an attractive destination next winter.
In contrast, 87% of tourism managers expect Germany to have a record tourism summer and 85% foresee strong demand for cruises this year. Moreover, 64% believe that consumers are prepared to take a certain risk in return for cheap prices.
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