Germany’s restaurateurs and hoteliers have not recovered from the slump in sales of the first Corona year in 2021. The results are worse than initially expected.
The Corona crisis also ruined business in the German hospitality industry in 2021. Nominally, innkeepers and hoteliers had just 0.1 percent more money in their tills than a year earlier, as calculated by the Federal Statistical Office.
In real terms, i.e. at constant prices, sales in the industry fell by 2.2 percent compared to 2020.
According to the Wiesbaden statisticians, the years 2020 and 2021, which were characterized by restrictions due to the pandemic, were the weakest in terms of sales in the hospitality industry in Germany since the beginning of the time series in 1994. Compared to the pre-crisis year 2019, catering and accommodation companies in Germany posted a real 40.3 last year percent and nominally 36.4 percent less.
Dehoga: Biggest loss since the post-war period
“The numbers illustrate the dramatic effects of the corona pandemic,” summarized the President of the German Hotel and Restaurant Association (Dehoga), Guido Zöllick. During the pandemic from March 2020 to December 2021, the loss in sales for the industry totaled 73.8 billion euros in real terms, or 69.5 billion euros in nominal terms.
“This is the biggest loss since the post-war period,” said Zöllick. “Nine months of lockdown and a large number of corona measures have left deep scars. Both employees and entrepreneurs urgently need stable future prospects.» Politicians must now quickly implement the agreed relaxation of the corona protection measures so that business can gradually normalize in the spring, the Dehoga President demanded.
In a first estimate, the statisticians assumed a more favorable development. In mid-January, the Federal Office had predicted real stagnation in sales in the hospitality industry for 2021 and calculated a nominal increase of two percent compared to the previous year.
Temporary increase in summer 2021
After enormous sales losses in winter and spring, the hospitality industry was able to significantly increase sales in summer 2021. At the end of the year, however, revenues fell again. Because the access restrictions in gastronomy and accommodation were tightened in many places in December due to the increasing number of corona infections, the usual high turnover did not materialize at the end of the year. From November to December, calendar and seasonally adjusted revenues fell by 21.1 percent in real terms and by 20.4 percent in nominal terms.
Nevertheless, hospitality sales in December 2021 were almost twice as high in real terms (plus 96.8 percent) as a year earlier, when a lockdown abruptly slowed down business just before Christmas. However, compared to February 2020, the month before the outbreak of the corona pandemic in Germany, it shows how large the gap still is: December sales were 41.6 percent below the level at the time.
Source: Stern
Jane Stock is a technology author, who has written for 24 Hours World. She writes about the latest in technology news and trends, and is always on the lookout for new and innovative ways to improve his audience’s experience.
