The Tourism Sales Climate Index in July 2020

Although the summer holidays started in almost all federal states in July and the Germans’ desire to travel is slowly returning, the Tourism Sales Climate Index is still far below the previous year’s level. Nevertheless, a slight upward trend can again be observed. Dr. Fried & Partner has been recording the mood at the counter on a monthly basis since 2005.

Current situation

In view of the current situation, none of the respondents assessed the current sales of travel services as good in July either. This has been continuing since April. On the other hand, 96.5% of travel agencies consider the current sales situation to be bad. In June, 98.3% of the participating travel agencies stated this. At least 3.5% of the travel agencies (1.8% more than in the previous month) assess the current situation in the sale of travel services as satisfactory.
Compared to the previous year, sales of travel services have fallen significantly in the last 2-3 months. Thus 95.7% of the participating travel agencies state that sales have fallen. However, 99.2% still shared this assessment in the previous month. 4.3% of the survey participants weigh current sales at a similar level to last year (3.5% more than in the previous month). On the other hand, no participant indicated that sales of travel services have increased in the last 2-3 months compared to the previous year.
The easing of restrictions, the summer holiday season and the recurring wanderlust are causing a minimal upward trend in the mood of travel agencies regarding the current sales situation. Nevertheless, existing travel warnings and the uncertainty of travellers with regard to their holiday bookings continue to have a massive negative impact on the current sales situation.

Future situation

Only 1.7% of the respondents, 1.7 percentage points less than in the previous month, expect demand for travel services to rise in the next 6 months. On the other hand, 5.2% of travel agencies expect demand to remain unchanged compared to the previous year. Only 3.4% stated this in June. The clear majority continues to show scepticism and expects demand to fall in the next 6 months compared to the previous year. Thus 93.0% chose this response option (previous month 93.3%).
All the same, the travel agencies assess the future earnings situation better than in June. Thus, 3.4% of participants already expect demand to improve. This figure has increased by 2.6 percentage points compared to the previous month. 6.9% of participants do not expect the earnings situation to change in the next 6 months (previous month: 2.5%). However, the majority of respondents (89.7%) still expects the earnings situation to deteriorate in the future. In the previous month, 96.6% of the respondents even shared this assumption.
With regard to the future development of demand, travel agencies are slightly less optimistic than in the previous month. However, a look at the expected future earnings situation shows cautious optimism and a more positive view of the future than in June.

Summary

Even if the mood at the counter is far from having recovered, travel agencies are still cautiously optimistic, especially when it comes to looking ahead. It is to be hoped that the situation with regard to the corona virus will continue to ease in order to improve the mood for sales and earnings at the counter.

In July 2020, 116 travel agencies took part in the survey (previous month 119).