Last year, recovery in Germany’s tourism sector was due to domestic inflows. Meanwhile, international spending is about 25% of levels recorded in 2019 and it is expected to be the same this year.
According to the latest report from The World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC). The travel and tourism sector in Germany has not improved to pre-pandemic standards so far.
This is in comparison to other major destinations in Europe. The standards include the employment, contribution to GDP and spending by global visitors.
The sector
There has been strong domestic visitor spending. But, the recovery will only be delayed because of taxes.
The CEO and President of WTTC, Julia Simpson, said that Travel & Tourism businesses and the German government need to have a sit-down.
They need to come up with a plan to figure out how to draw international visitors because it has a big impact on the economy.
According to WTTC’s forecast, there will be a recovery in overall GDP contribution. But, spending by international visitors and jobs are expected to stay below pre-pandemic levels.
The contribution of the Travel & Tourism sector in Germany to the overall economy in the same period will be around €469 billion. This is about 0.5% higher than the numbers recorded in 2019.
The numbers
An increase of 160,000 is expected in jobs this year. But, this number is still 80,000 less than the peak levels recorded before the pandemic.
As far as spending by international visitors is concerned, this metric is also expected to remain at about 10% after 2019.
In fact, this year will see a deficit of about €5.1 billion, as compared to 2019. Meanwhile, a moderate increase is expected in domestic ones this year.
It is expected to increase about 1.2%, which will push it up to €411 billion.
Last year’s performance
The WTTC report showed that the impact of the sector on the German GDP had been over €453 billion in 2023.
Employment in the sector had seen a 5% increase to reach 6.8 million. But it was still lower than the numbers in 2019 by almost 250,000.
Last year, worldwide visitor expenditure was almost 25% less than 2019, with global visitors spending €14 billion less.
However, domestic visitor expenditure last year recuperated entirely, as it stood at €2.19 billion. This was higher than numbers recorded in 2019.
This shows that domestic visitors have been leading the path to recovery for the Travel and Tourism sector after the pandemic.
The WTTC said that the annual GDP contribution of the sector would reach almost €554 billion by 2034. This will happen as long as there is appropriate support from the government.
The number is almost 12% of the German economy and could lead to employment for almost 6.5 million people across the country.
