As Elisabeth Thelen, Chairwoman of the Supervisory Board of KölnTourismus GmbH (Cologne Tourist Board) explains, “In view of the many years in which there were big increases in visitors coming to Cologne, and considering the difficult conditions we experienced last year, the decrease in arrivals and overnight stays should be called moderate. The terrorist attacks in Paris, Brussels, Nice and Berlin caused tourists to have reservations concerning security. The consequences of that have been felt by big cities in particular. Against this background, we are very satisfied with the figures for last year.”
From the very start, Cologne’s image in 2016 was impacted by the attacks on New Year’s Eve, which received international publicity. Events such as Brexit, which was accompanied by a decline in Britons’ purchasing power, and the presidential election campaign in the USA, during which Americans traditionally travel less, had an effect on Cologne’s two most important source markets abroad, the UK and the USA. There were no notable changes in the rankings of the most important countries of origin, but there were decreases in all of the relevant source markets except China. In order of their volume of overnight stays, these countries are: Germany (-2.8 per cent), the UK (-12.1 per cent), the USA (-2.3 per cent), the Netherlands (-8.5 per cent), Switzerland (-7.7 per cent) and Belgium (-1 per cent).
“Between 2013 and 2016, Cologne had a disproportionate increase in overnight stays, which exceeded the averages for Germany and for the ten Magic Cities Germany,” says Josef Sommer, CEO of the Cologne Tourist Board. “Our aim now is to stabilize these figures and continue to publicize the many strong points of Cologne, which continues to be a popular destination for city tours and business trips. This marketing strategy will be targeted at national and international media. We are confident that the slight decrease will be offset by developments in the medium and long terms. The visitor figures from September onward indicate that this is the case.”
