Berlin According to a recent data analysis by the auditing company EY, holidays are good for your health. Employees who travel at least one week a year call in sick significantly less frequently than people who stay at home for the year. When comparing the two groups, the average number of days absent due to illness falls from 23 to 14 days a year, provided the holiday lasts at least one week.
At the moment, however, the industry itself is suffering from the after-effects of “illness-related absences”, even if the waning of Covid infections has been driving customers back to travel agencies since the beginning of April.
It is not only worrying that hotel bookings in Germany in the first quarter of 2022 were still 33.5 percent below the level before Corona – a slump that can no longer be made up for over the year as a whole. Even more, the industry is starting its planned restart before the summer in the worst possible condition.
Since the beginning of the corona pandemic, 17 percent of tourism and gastronomy employees have turned their backs on the industry. In many places, providers therefore have to limit service times even in the high season. “Because they sat at home for months, our people switched to Aldi, to bakeries or other craft businesses out of frustration,” reports Rolf Seelige-Steinhoff, whose Seetel hotels with more than 500 employees in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania are the second largest employer after Aida . He lost 13 percent of his workforce. “And they’re not coming back,” he says.
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Vacation seekers have been feeling the effects of migration at Germany’s airports for weeks. In Cologne/Bonn, there were repeatedly queues for hours at the security checkpoints last week, and passengers missed their planes. In Düsseldorf, too, passengers reported chaotic conditions at the weekend. Sometimes you had to wait more than two hours for the suitcases.
The aviation companies were saved from certain demise by the state during the pandemic, said Matthias von Randow, general manager of the Federal Association of the German Aviation Industry (BDL), on Monday at the Berlin tourism summit. However, the “sudden restart” that has been experienced in recent weeks is causing “operational problems” for the airports.
Financial situation remains unstable
The mountains of debt that accumulated during the lockdowns and travel restrictions are also likely to cause problems for many holiday providers. Debts in the two-digit billion dollar range are piling up not only for the three major cruise lines Carnival, Royal Caribbean and Norway Cruise Lines, which also include German providers such as Aida or Tui Cruises. The big German tour operators have also been hit financially.
Despite silent deposits from the state economic stabilization fund (WSF) of 1.1 billion euros, Tui still reported net debt of 3.9 billion euros at the end of March. After a net loss of 345 million euros, competitor FTI complained about negative equity in the three-digit million range at the end of October 2020. Here, too, the WSF subsequently agreed to a silent participation of 250 million. In addition, the Munich Tui competitor received state-guaranteed loans of over 280 million euros and a subordinated state loan from the WSF of 235 million euros, the shareholders themselves reached into private coffers to save FTI with 105 million euros.
The providers are considered saved for the time being. But they are prevented from expanding through acquisitions as long as the state has to help them out financially. In addition, high interest payments at Tui, FTI and many others should slow down the hoped-for restart.
At the same time, rising inflation and the war in Ukraine are dampening hopes of strong summer business. “Both of these are causing a great deal of uncertainty,” reports Claudia Müller, the federal government’s coordinator for maritime economy and tourism, from discussions with consumers and companies.
The German coach companies are already registering concrete negative effects. So far, tours to Eastern Europe have been an important business for the industry, reports Benedikt Esser from the industry association RDA. “But now the demand for trips to neighboring Ukrainian countries such as Romania, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia has plummeted.”
So that the German tourism industry, which received around 42 percent of all aid money during the pandemic with 27 billion euros, does not ultimately degenerate into a problem for the German economy, industry representatives such as Ingrid Hartges from the Dehoga hotel and restaurant association are calling for a “burden moratorium”. . “It cannot be,” says the pugnacious association manager, “that our companies are also being patronized during the crisis.”
In fact, the legislator keeps the gastronomy in suspense. From the beginning of 2023, Germany’s to-go stations will always have to offer their guests food and drinks in reusable packaging, there will be a plastic tax on plastic cutlery and paper plates, and there may soon even be an animal welfare tax on meat.
In addition, the minimum wage will increase drastically to twelve euros per hour in October 2022, which means that, according to Dehoga estimates, 60 percent of the employees will have to be paid more. In addition, in view of CO2 pricing, the pressure on companies to invest in climate-friendly technology is growing. Airlines and hotel owners are by no means the only ones affected. “In Germany there are 12,000 coaches whose conversion to alternative drives costs enormous money,” says RDA President Esser. The companies are still burdened with large loans due to the pandemic.
The travel industry is in a bind
All of this is causing considerable concern for DER Touristik boss Sören Hartmann, who recently headed the Federal Association of the German Tourism Industry (BTW). When it comes to climate change, the holiday industry should not block, he sees the industry in a quandary, “otherwise politicians will simply impose their rules on us in the end”.
It is not even certain that the corona pandemic will not cause another setback in autumn. “We must be prepared for a possible new wave by August at the latest,” demands Dehoga Managing Director Hartges. “And we have to do better than in the past,” she warns, “possibly rethinking federalism.”
Some in the industry even go a step further. “Because of Corona, there should be no more travel warnings from the Federal Foreign Office,” demands Thomas Bösl, head of the travel agency cooperation QTA. After the outbreak of the pandemic, travel warnings allowed German holiday customers to cancel their bookings free of charge. The repayment of customer money then brought many tour operators into financial difficulties.
Admittedly, such demands do not find much attention on the part of politicians. “Something like that would be negligent,” believes ex-minister Anja Karliczek, who has represented the tourism policy interests of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group since the change of government. Stefan Schmidt, who speaks for the Greens in the same position, also makes it clear: “Should there be another lockdown in autumn, aid funds similar to those in 2020 and 2021 would probably no longer be available.”
The EY study, co-financed by the Green Ministry of Economic Affairs, on the other hand, provides the supporters of such aid with valuable ammunition. The auditors calculate that 8.8 percent of working days in Germany are lost every year due to illness, and the overall economic costs of being ill are 20 percent of gross domestic product.
“That corresponds to around 713 billion euros,” says study leader Lars Knuth and therefore advises more frequent vacations. “Every fewer days of sickness reduces costs for the individual company and the economy as a whole.”
More: Raising the minimum wage puts hotels in trouble.