The German hotel industry has not experienced the steepest performance declines during the economic crisis, but actual occupancy, average daily rate and revenue per available room still remained low compared with Europe.
Data based on the monthly and selected daily results collected by STR Global and their partner in Germany, Fairmas, show for the first seven months of the year, Germany has fared better than the European average, using the year-on-year change in the parameters of occupancy (Germany -6 percent; Europe -9 percent), average daily rate (-6.7 percent; -12.1 percent) and revenue per available room (-12.3 percent; -20 percent). 'Whilst the change over the previous year may not appear so significant, it is important to note that the actual figures for Germany are already low so, there is not so far to fall', explains Wolfgang Gattringer, Director of Business Development at Fairmas.
Hotel Performance for the year to July 2009
Source: STR Global
The Importance of Leisure
Different markets within Germany have significant differences in performance. Respected hotelier Willy Weiland, vice president, operations, Germany for the InterContinental Hotels Group, saw the better players being those cities that have an established leisure infrastructure. 'Berlin is an attractive leisure proposition, and despite the recent increase in supply, especially with new rooms in the three- and four-star sector, occupancy has barely fallen (-3.2 percent). The change in the segmentation of business from corporate to leisure however has resulted in a fall in average rate (-8.2 percent)', he explained. The result is a decline in RevPAR for Berlin of 11.1 percent. Hamburg exhibited a similar trend to that of Berlin with a fall of 7 percent in RevPAR. On the other hand, Munich, a strong leisure destination, showed a more significant RevPAR fall of 16.2 percent, due largely to the city having a slow trade fair year without several of the bi-annual fairs that fell in 2008.
Hotel Performance for selected German markets the year to July 2009
Source: STR Global and Fairmas
Forecast
Regarding recent news of 0.5-percent growth in German GDP in the second quarter of 2009, Elizabeth Randall, managing director of STR Global, warned that 'it is too early to call the impact of a single quarter's growth on the German hotel market. Our Hotel Market Forecast reports for the major German cities do however point to slow recovery with only small declines into 2010'.
About Fairmas
Fairmas was founded in 2003, and so far more than 700 hotels submit market data. In early 2009, Fairmas started a cross-destination benchmarking service for the holiday and resort hotel industry. The company is the only provider of a rate view tool combined with a daily benchmarking service.
In addition, Fairmas specialises in software solutions for planning and budgeting, adapted to hotels' own in-house requirements. In this sector, the number of hotel software installations worldwide has passed the 1,000 mark. The continuous growth and constant development of our product range are key characteristics of Fairmas. Through its cooperation partners, the company is also active in London and Atlanta. For more information, visit www.fairmas.com.
About STR & STR Global
For more than 20 years, Smith Travel Research has been the recognized leader for lodging industry benchmarking and research. Smith Travel Research and STR Global offer monthly, weekly, and daily STAR benchmarking reports to more than 36,000 hotel clients, representing nearly 5 million rooms worldwide. STR is headquartered in Hendersonville, Tenn., and STR Global is based in London. For more information, visit www.smithtravelresearch.com or www.strglobal.com.
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