Usually, summer is the time of year when foreign guests are drawn to German cities. The climate is pleasant, for example for visitors who come from the heat-plagued Emirates. There is culture, there is carefree life outside – in the beer garden or in the café. That has changed with Corona. And foreign visitors are hesitant to return to the cities. Hamburg, Berlin, Dresden and Erfurt – these are currently the most popular destinations, at least for German holidaymakers who book through TUI. The cities have relatively permissive regulations for those who have been vaccinated and those who have recovered. In Berlin, for example, the restrictions on private contacts in closed rooms and in the open air were lifted, in Saxony events with up to 25,000 spectators are permitted under certain conditions, and in Hamburg the discos were reopened on a trial basis. Erfurt also has the Federal Garden Show.
But there is now a quite extensive cultural offering in other places too – and that is also important for many city holidaymakers. Tickets for the cultural program “Kölner Bühnensommer 2021” are in great demand in Cologne, in Munich there is “Kunst im Quadrat” on the Theresienwiese, and Stuttgart boasts three open-air cultural events in the city center in August alone. If the restrictions on concerts and theater performances are loosened further in autumn, this will attract even more people in Germany to the cities, of this the tour operator Tui is convinced.
The vacationers from the USA and Asia are still missing
According to the German National Tourist Board Association, around eleven million international guests usually find their way into the country every year. Germany is “firmly established as the number one city trip destination in Europe,” says Petra Hedorfer, chairman of the association’s board of directors. How many visitors there will be this summer cannot yet be estimated. So far, there is still a lack of – normally well represented – holidaymakers from the United States and Asia, also because some countries have still imposed travel restrictions on their citizens. In addition, it is still noticeable in the big cities that trade fairs and congresses are not yet taking place on-site as usual.
The fact that the summer season is running slowly can also be seen from the hotel bookings: According to the German Hotel and Restaurant Association Dehoga, the occupancy rate of hotels in major German cities such as Berlin was around 40 percent in June and July compared to around 82 percent in 2019. “That is still a long way from sales in previous years,” says Managing Director Ingrid Hartges, “but the guests are slowly returning.” There is still a lack of foreign holidaymakers, but Germans are increasingly traveling in their own country. “And now that culture is up and running again, people have a reason to travel to the cities again.”
The five new Unesco world cultural heritage sites could also benefit from the cultural affinity of German holidaymakers: Baden-Baden, Bad Kissingen and Bad Ems received the title together with eleven other “major spa towns in Europe”, the Mathildenhöhe artists’ colony in Darmstadt, the Jewish heritage in Speyer, Worms and Mainz as well as the Danube Limes and the Lower German Limes on the Rhine.
However, one thing has changed with the pandemic: the German guests, otherwise world champions, plan their vacations much more spontaneously. Always with the thought in mind that the trip might end at the last minute.