The Covid-19 pandemic is having a massive effect on the tourism industry worldwide, but many countries are slowly recovering and getting closer to pre-crisis levels. One of these countries is Germany, with the county’s tourism industry registering a significant increase in international demand again. This corresponds directly to the most recent studies on Germany's ‘nation brand’.
Almost a third (30.78 %) of bookings in German hotels this month came from guests from abroad – the highest proportion since the beginning of the pandemic.
This is based on SiteMinder's World Hotel Index, taken from the company's open hotel commerce platform, used by 32 000 hotels and connected to more than 400 hotel booking channels worldwide.
Overall, hotel bookings in Germany are currently at 79.37 % of the 2019 figures, higher than the 73.79 % that were recorded on March 10 in 2020, the day before the pandemic was declared. With this number, Germany is also above the global average, which currently accounts for 77.56 % of the booking volume in 2019.
Germany’s Impressive Nation Brand
At the same time, the world's leading market research company Ipsos announced that Germany is once again on the top of the renowned Anholt-Ipsos Nation Brands Index (NBI). Canada (70.64 points) and Japan (70.52 points) follow in second and third place. Canada’s main strength lay in governance, people, immigration, and investment, where the country ranked first. Japan, on the other hand, reached the top 3 for the first time since 2018, registering positive perceptions on export, tourism, and culture.
Germany’s ‘nation brand’ has always been in the top 3 in the NBI since 2008 and in first place for the seventh time this year, thus matching the United States’ record.
In the overall ranking of the NBI 2021, Germany received 71.06 points, 1.94 more than last year and at the same time the highest average score measured in the history of the NBI.
Fine Tourism Performance
Germany is ranked in the top 10 in five of the six sub-indices that make up the NBI: exports, government, culture, tourism, and immigration/investment.
In the tourism segment, the survey participants rate Germany with 73.24 points, 2.65 points better than in 2020, which means 10th place in the global ranking. The sub-categories "Historic Buildings" and "Living Cities" enjoy a particular appreciation, both in 7th place.
According to German experts, these reports demonstrate the direct connection between Germany's excellent reputation, the growing willingness to travel and a successful recovery strategy for restarting the incoming tourism.