The hospitality industry of Berlin had an exceptionally good year in 2019. It reached a record level of revenue per available room (RevPAR) and occupancy. This is a fantastic result taking into consideration the economic uncertainty and possible economic recession. Thanks to the growing demand and no big hotel openings, hotels in Berlin increased their occupancy by 1.5% to 79.2% in total. This helped RevPAR grow as well to 78.87 euro (+1.4%). The average daily rate remained nearly flat (-0.1% to 99.53 euro).
Before, only hotels in Paris, London, and some other cities could achieve such high occupancy levels. However, the popularity of Berlin is growing, and the city is now one of the most popular leisure destinations in Europe. The city attracts not only vacationers Berlin is an important destination for all kinds of conferences, meetings, exhibitions, and other business events.
Events of all kinds have always been one of the major boosters for the hospitality industry of the region. For example, Berlin hotels had the highest year-on-year increase in occupancy in January 2019 (+11.1%) because of a number of events that took place in the city such as Berlin Fashion Week and Green Week Berlin. In May, Berlin had the highest increase in ADR (+8.0%) due to another important event the Airlift Festival.
In February, the Berlin Film Festival helped the city’s hotels to increase their occupancy by 3.4% and RevPAR by 6.6%. Finally, on November 9 the capital of Germany celebrated the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. The celebration weekend brought two-digit gains in RevPAR to Berlin hotels.
With such strong results in 2019, it will be hard for Berlin hotels, as well as hotels in other European cities, to maintain the same occupancy and revenue level in 2020. Moreover, this year started with much uncertainty for global tourism and hospitality due to the coronavirus outbreak. For example, Barcelona hotels already suffer from a decrease of 25% in bookings due to the cancellation of the Mobile World Congress. The popular event was due to start on February 12 but it was decided to cancel it because of the global concern regarding the fast spread of the virus. As many as 100,000 delegates were expected to visit Barcelona in order to attend the event. February 25 was the day with the highest business bookings, but as soon as the event was canceled, bookings fell by 67%.