Hotels and restaurants are still struggling in the face of high inflation. Price-adjusted sales in the hospitality industry fell by 1.8 percent in May compared to the previous month, as the Federal Statistical Office announced on Wednesday. At the same time, it remains well below the level of the pre-Corona period: compared to May 2019, the month before the outbreak of the pandemic in Germany, sales were down 11.8 percent in real terms.
“Our companies are suffering from the increasing costs, especially for energy, food and staff,” said the President of the German Hotel and Restaurant Association (Dehoga), Guido Zöllick. “The after-effects of the pandemic are making things more difficult for companies.” According to a recent Dehoga survey, entrepreneurs name the lack of employees (66.4 percent) as a problem, followed by the repayment of corona-related loans (40.4 percent), the investment backlog (37.1 percent) and the replenishment of reserves for old age (34.5 percent). In the catering industry alone, real sales in May rose by 0.3 percent month-on-month, but were still 14.3 percent lower than in May 2019. The industry association is therefore calling for the reduced VAT rate for food in the catering industry to continue. “The seven percent VAT must remain,” said Zöllick.
Hotels and other accommodation companies reported a drop in sales of 0.2 percent in April. This means that revenue was still 0.6 percent below the pre-crisis level of May 2019. Many consumers are tightening their belts because of the loss of purchasing power as a result of high inflation. The inflation rate in Germany is currently 6.4 percent. Economists assume that it should fall towards three percent by the end of the year.