2/6/2008

Tourist state Bavaria more popular than ever before: record number of visitors to Bavaria in 2007 for the fourth year in succession

Müller: “Outlook for Germany’s Number One vacation state still good”

MUNICH     The tourist state of Bavaria is maintaining its successful course: in 2007 the State received a record number of visitors for the fourth year in succession. Bavaria’s Minister of Economic Affairs, Emilia Müller, is delighted at the positive trend: “The good state of the economy is making itself felt in most of the establishments offering accommodation and has brought the State of Bavaria its best figures for overnight stays since 2001. In terms of guest popularity, Bavaria is still easily the Number 1 state in Germany with over 21% of all overnight stays.

According to the Minister, the outlook for 2008 is good. “The economy is intact and the increases in the vacation budget are well above the trend for private consumption.” Müller is also expecting the Bavarian tourist industry to benefit this year from football-related ‘windfall profits’. “Like with the European Cup in Portugal four years ago or the 2006 World Cup in Germany, some regular visitors and potential vacationers will try to avoid the hubbub of the European Cup in Austria and Switzerland and chose rival destinations instead. Bavaria then offers an attractive alternative”, the Minister continued.

Last year 26.4 million tourists stayed in Bavarian hotels and guesthouses and on its campsites. They brought the Bavarian tourist industry 3.6 percent more visitors. The trend for overnight stays was also upwards: they increased by 2.1 percent to 76.2 million.

In 2007, it was the foreign tourists that accounted for the surge in figures in Bavaria. They were 5 percent up on 2006, just passing the 6 million mark for the very first time. The number of overnight stays by visitors from abroad increased even more sharply: by 6 percent to 12.8 million. In year one after the World Cup Football Championships, Bavaria therefore registered nearly twice as high an increase in foreigners as for the whole of Germany. “Bavaria’s global marketing strategy is working and combined with the growing internationalization of our economy, it is contributing to this boom in guests from abroad,” the Minister underlined.

But in 2007 Bavaria also recorded an increase in domestic tourists as well: here the number of arrivals went up 3.2 % to 20.3 million, and overnight stays by 1.3 percent to 63.4 million. This means that for the first time the Bavarian hotel and catering industry welcomed more than 20 million German guests in one year.

City tourism is still thriving in Bavaria. The major Bavarian cities with a population exceeding 100,000 recorded an exceptionally high increase in overnight stays of 5.5 percent to 14.8 million in 2007. Last year, 61.4 million people stayed in the smaller communities, which is 1.3 percent more than in the year before. The Bavarian hotel industry in particular benefited from the continuing trend towards city tours and short-stay holidays. It booked 1.6 million or 3.3 percent more overnight stays and landed more or less on target with just over 50 million. The camping industry closed the year 2007 with a plus of precisely 1 percent. The extremely mediocre weather in the second half of the year prevented an even better annual result for this branch of the tourist industry that is traditionally very dependent on weather conditions.

Source: Invest in Bavaria