For the hospitality sector, the last few months felt like a long, dark tunnel with nothing but a very pale light at the end of it – more like a hopeful promise than a soon-to-be reality.
NB: This is an article from TrustYou
While we all knew that the crisis will eventually start to fade and travel will pick up again, it was almost impossible to predict a time and a place for that. Skepticism and caution are still in the back of everyone’s minds but data finally shows clear signs of recovery.
The path to recovery began in Asia and it now continues in Europe, starting with Germany and Switzerland. We constantly kept an eye on our Travel Healthy Index, the unique KPI that we developed at the beginning of the coronavirus crisis, which compares current review volumes with the normal levels of 2019. We made it our mission to support hoteliers and customers with solid data that shows the current state of travel and the very first signs of recovery within the hospitality sector. Now, what seemed like a never-ending wait is finally transitioning to more optimistic views.
In the week ending on June 7th, our THI showed the highest scores that Germany and Switzerland have recorded since the beginning of the pandemic, making them the first European countries to escape the “lockdown” status. Germany is currently at a THI score of 23 and Switzerland at 32, based on the following THI calculation: the number of published hotel reviews in the last week divided by the number of published hotel reviews in the same timeframe last year.
You can see in this graphic based on the THI that Germany and Switzerland are currently at the highest levels since the beginning of March, after suffering a drastic decrease in the number of guest reviews, given the complete lockdown status. The THI also signals the week-over-week changes and it is now showing a refreshing increase for Germany, which scored 11 more points than the previous week. Switzerland’s week-over-week recovery is slightly slower than Germany, having only 6 points, however, as the graphic shows, Switzerland’s recovery has been happening at a faster and higher pace.
It has been predicted for a while now that domestic travel will be the first one to pick up and thinking of these two countries, their recovery is only natural: we are talking about countries that rely heavily on domestic travel and that benefit from a vast selection of tourist attractions, especially mountain retreats, ski or spa resorts, or simply hotels with beautiful views and outdoor spaces and activities – the exact traits that the post COVID-19 traveler is looking for.
Data regarding hotel reservations is also shifting in Germany. Last week we registered the first signs of a positive trend in reservation data, due to the reopening of German hotels. On the graphic below, the grey lines represent the hotel check-outs and it is clearly depicted how that number has drastically decreased at the end of February, but it is now on an upwards trend, having reached the highest peak since the beginning of the crisis at the end of May.
The spotlight will continue to shine on Europe’s evolution and its path to recovery, so make sure to keep an eye on our Travel Health Index. The data is updated on a weekly basis and it shows the increase of hotel reviews in different countries, corresponding to their hotel reopenings and travels.
