Hi, welcome to another Expert Insights discussion

With Euro 2024 not far away, we wanted to look at how this tournament has influenced the hotel Sector in the key host cities and how this tournament compares to other major events such as the Olympics or Pop concerts.

But we also wanted to dig a bit deeper and see if the match location, date of the match and the opponents, have influenced demand and pricing.

We also explore what the regional hotels could be doing to pick up business which has been displaced due to the tournament.

To guide us through the numbers and provide their insights, we are joined again by:
Viet Meier of berner+becker, one of our Expert Partners

Really hope you enjoy the conversation

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RECORDING SOUNDBITES

Now with the European Championships now, it’s certainly a bit different, right? I think we got to make also the differentiation between like, how is booking curves or booking movements looking for something like the group stages, in comparison also to the let’s say, the knockout stages. In addition, I think for the Euros, a lot has been dependent or is still dependent on how the ticketing sales has been going or when tickets were released – we had application phases during the course of last year, basically from mid year last year to towards the end of last year –  and now we had tickets being released towards the end of last year, we had ticket releases coming in, over the course of quarter one, we had the official ramp up of the Euros resell platform, so in case you cannot make it to the game, right, and you can officially and safely, first of all, resell your ticket and all those kinds of events, basically around the ticketing have a tremendous impact on you know how booking curves are basically developing be it a semifinal also being at a final match

During the Euros, you’ve seen the greatest price increases already happening far far out , right. That’s kind of a practice that that you would call like security pricing or protection of pricing in that sense. It’s also wise for any of the hoteliers that are, for example, looking into their booking positioning, or their price positioning also, for any of the group stage matches, to still keep on to, let’s say a rather high pricing, because one thing is for sure, even though that entire event has spread out over a number of weeks. It’s gonna be sell out days, right? For pretty much all matches in all host cities. I think that’s that’s the thing that we can almost say for sure.

You are seeing one of the let’s say highest entry rates being sold and that’s in a location that is Dortmund. So we get different factors right. Dortmund, obviously super well known as being one of the cities in Germany to watch football just because of the stadium just because of the ambience. Secondly, however, you would say, okay, Scotland and Switzerland, not the two greatest teams might be a bit of a, not necessarily a downer, but you know, some of the higher profile, exactly, and still, you find one of the currently highest priced matches in that constellation. Right. And also that we’re seeing one of the highest entry rates being sold at 552 euros. And that’s, that’s crazy. Wow. Yeah. And, you know, on the other hand side, you have matches, like even the opening match, here in Munich, Germany versus Scotland, where rates are nowhere near as high. And obviously, also, along the group stages, at least you have match dates that carry certainly matches where there’s a lot of attractiveness, first of all, from the host cities, secondly, also from the countries that are playing each other, where you would not see as high of a spike in terms of pricing as for those examples that I’ve just mentioned, and I really find it interesting.

Which kind of business is going to be displaced from the host cities to somewhere else, right. And this is where we’re talking market segmentation. And I would almost say like, if you look at the distribution of games during the course of two weeks, you have a couple of midweek games, and you obviously have two weekend games happening over the course of those four weeks. There is an element to say, especially groups business might not be happening, especially let’s say, lengths of stay, one group’s business might not be happening necessarily within the host city in specific hotels. But it’s rather happening then, or is being requested in hotels outside of the host city. And this is also I think, where a huge opportunity lies for those hotels being located in a little bit, a regional area from those host cities.

Because they can position themselves entirely different and pick up a different sort of business in a much greater amount, basically, then they would usually be able to do if it’s a weekend game, I think it very much depends on the length of stay is driven obviously also by the attractiveness of the host city. Right. If you look at Munich, if you look at Berlin, obviously those are in a way also leisure cities. If you look at Hamburg, for example, this is locations where you can easily spend a couple of days in and that will obviously also have an impact on length of stays. And secondly, also down on pricing for length of stay booking to come whereas, you know, locations like Dortmund, you come in there for the game

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VIDEO CHAPTERS

00:00 Video Introduction
01:46 How does impact of Euros 2024 compare to the Olympics or Pop Concert
06:56 How has prices for hotels altered for different stages
12:00 How are game match-ups, location, day of the match affecting demand or price
17:24 Where does Short Term Rental come into play on pricing and demand for hotels
19:30 Business is still operating despite Euros, where is that business going
23:56 What is the negative impact of a tournament in host cities
26:34 Summarising and final thoughts
29:02 Other videos and subscribing