The Tourism Sales Climate Index – May 2019

The mood among travel agencies remains depressed in May 2019 as well – the tourism sales climate index of Dr. Fried & Partner continues to fall this month. Cautious optimism can only be seen in the assessment of the future earnings situation in the summer months of 2019.

Current situation

In May 2019, only 28.0% of participating travel agencies rated the current situation in travel service sales as good. In the previous month, this figure was 33.9%. Exactly half of the travel agencies surveyed in Germany describe the current situation in the sale of travel services as satisfactory (previous month 43.5%). After all, the number of survey participants who perceive the current situation as bad fell from 22.6% to 22.0% in May. By way of comparison, this figure was 5.3% in the same month last year.
In addition, it is once again clear that the negative assessment of this year’s booking year has its origin, among other things, in the strong previous year. The number of travel agencies surveyed, where sales of travel services have risen in the last 2-3 months compared to the previous year, has shrunk from 17.4% in the previous month to more than 12.9%. 38.8% (36.5% in the previous month) rate the sale of travel services in the last 2-3 months as unchanged and almost half of the survey participants (48.3%) rate the sale of travel services in the last 2-3 months as lower than in the same month of the previous year.

Future situation

The estimates of the travel agencies surveyed regarding the demand for travel services in the coming 6 months are slightly optimistic in May 2019 compared to the current situation. Whereas in April 18.3% still expected a future increase in demand for travel services, in May 2019 it was 20.7%. Nevertheless, more than half (56.0%) of the surveyed participants expect demand for travel services to remain the same in the coming 6 months. Only 23.3% still anticipate a further decline in demand. This figure was 25.2% in April 2019.
Minor changes compared with the previous month are reflected in the assessment of the future earnings situation. The majority of the travel agencies surveyed expect the situation to remain the same in the next 6 months (50.8%, previous month 50.0%). On the other hand, 33.1% expect the situation to deteriorate. The number of those who expect the earnings situation to improve in the coming 6 months has fallen from 17.5% in the previous month to 16.1%.

Summary

Overall, the tourism sales climate index remains at a very low level. This is particularly evident in view of the very strong previous year. With regard to the future situation, the mood is hardly noticeable.
In May 2019, 118 travel agencies (115 random samples from the previous month) gave their ratings.