Investors are pouring record sums into the struggling hotel industry

Dusseldorf Splendor and misery could hardly be closer together than in Germany’s hotel industry. The market report just published by the hotel association IHA calculated that an average hotel room in the trade fair city of Frankfurt, for example, earned just 18 euros a day last year. Things looked similarly gloomy in Stuttgart and Essen, where business travelers usually generate a lot of revenue. But many trade fairs have been cancelled, events and congresses have been cancelled. The guests are missing.

Even in the tourist city of Berlin, the number of overnight stays fell by 60 percent last year compared to 2019. In addition, room rates fell by 14 percent. The number of foreign guests – as of May 2022 – is still more than a fifth below the level before Corona. Particularly bitter: With an average room occupancy of 31.5 percent, Germany’s hoteliers only managed half of what would have been necessary to get into the black in 2021.