The name “Pfaffenwinkel” sounds comparatively contemplative, and not only Susanne Lengger is quite right. “Nothing is going on”, it used to be said. As the managing director of the Pfaffenwinkel tourism association, Susanne Lengger should expressly ensure that there is something going on in the Weilheim-Schongau district in terms of tourism. It is precisely because of this that this old image of secluded boredom has helped her through the crisis quite well in the end. Because the rural, where you can be in restful peace and quiet, was in demand in times of the Corona. And as long as this demand does not result in a mass phenomenon including traffic problems and heated overtourism debates like at Tegernsee or Walchensee, a tourism region like Pfaffenwinkel could get through the pandemic quite well. Of course, the hosts there suffered recently, just like everyone else in Bavaria. Lengger’s example should be encouraging when the Upper Bavaria Munich Tourist Office (TOM) took stock on Thursday after this summer.
The figures presented by TOM managing director Oswald Pehel, the association president and Rosenheim CSU member of the state parliament, Klaus Stöttner, and management consultant Lars Bengsch, like all figures, only become meaningful in comparison. Compared to 2019, the year before Corona, they would be consistently devastating. The number of overnight stays from January to August 2021 fell by more than half compared to the same period in 2019. After all, the entire industry was stuck in lockdown until mid-May this year. Compared to the same period in 2020, there is still a minus of 17.7 percent. But the recent summer gives Upper Bavaria’s tourists hope. In the months of June to August, the number of overnight stays was significantly higher than in summer 2020 and in some cases even reached the level of summer 2019, especially in the holiday regions on the edge of the Alps. In Susanne Lengger’s Pfaffenwinkel, for example, only 2.2 percent were missing. It was very similar in Chiemgau, Tölzer Land and below the Zugspitze.
There, too, the operators of campsites and the landlords of holiday apartments were able to look forward to more guests, who also stayed longer. Because in the pandemic, people wanted to be able to be for themselves, according to the TOM analysis. In view of global travel restrictions and the uncertainty due to changing rules at the borders, hardly any guests came from abroad. In return, the Germans not only came to Upper Bavaria for their second or third vacation, but also often spent the most important and longest vacation of the year in the country. It was not until August that the tourism industry registered significantly more foreign guests again, with numbers generally pointing upwards.
Above all, the state capital has been lacking these for a long time, where they make up about half of all guests in normal years. Because business travelers and trade fair visitors also stayed away due to a lack of events, the Munich hotel industry came out of the two lockdowns far worse than the businesses in the traditional holiday regions. The occupancy rate fell sharply from 2019 to 2020, and lower room prices had little effect on the other hand, but were clearly at the expense of the revenue per room, which fell from more than 100 to a good 40 euros. Most recently, according to TOM, the European Championship soccer games, the IAA mobility fair and the Expo Real hybrid fair also gave Munich hotels the long-awaited boost. Peter Inselkammer, who also hosted the TOM presentation in his Hotel Platzl on Thursday, particularly praised the Munich Wirtshaus-Wiesn. “There was a zest for life in the city, an enthusiasm, we couldn’t have imagined it that way.” In 2022 there will certainly be a real Oktoberfest instead of a pub Oktoberfest.
For TOM President Stöttner, the pandemic in town and country has matured the realization “that we need each other”. Upper Bavaria accounted for 40 percent of the entire tourism business in Bavaria. This means that the region is also a heavyweight throughout Germany. Tourism, which was once often ridiculed as an industry, contributes a large part to Bavaria’s economic success.
What the industry lacks is now often less the guests and more the staff. From summer 2019 to summer 2020, more than 17 percent and by this summer another five percent of employees would have turned their backs on tourism, calculates management consultant Bengsch. “One in five no longer works in the industry.” The same goes for the hotels and restaurants in the Pfaffenwinkel. “There are many who have looked for other jobs,” says Susanne Lengger. A number of companies there have therefore already introduced several days of rest per week. In Munich, with its wide range, something like this is manageable for everyone who is hungry and thirsty. In some places in Pfaffenwinkel, where there are only one or two companies at all, from Lengger’s point of view it is definitely “system-critical” if both are closed on the same day. In this respect, Lengger sees it as her current task not only to “win over, inspire and keep” the guests, but also the staff. According to Oswald Pehel, the industry is not being discouraged by the currently sharply rising corona numbers. “Vaccination is the seat belt for us in tourism.”