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Cologne Hotels Enjoyed the Best Year in 2019

Cologne, Germany, has always been the center of business travel in the country, but the city was exceptionally successful in 2019, ending the year with record-high results. Cologne hotels greeted the biggest number of visitors last year – 3.83 million or 3.4% higher than in 2018. Also, hotels registered 6.58 million overnight stays, 4.6% up year-on-year. This is also the highest result on record. In 2019, Cologne attracted both domestic and foreign guests, but the growth in the international tourist segment was higher – up 5.7% in the number of guests and up 7.5% in overnight stays.

The city is famous as a meeting and event destination, and 2019 proved this fact once again. Cologne hosted as many as 53,397 events (1.2% more than in 2018) with more than 4 million participants (+2.2%). The growth in the number of overnight stays made 2019 particularly successful for hotels in Cologne as they maintained high room rates throughout the year. Cologne has the second-highest average room rate in Germany – 118 euro.

Naturally, not only the hospitality industry benefits from a big number of guests but also cross-sectoral businesses such as dining establishments, retailers, cultural venues, and so on. Together, these companies generated approximately 150 million euro for the economy of the city. This fact makes tourism one of the major sources of income for Cologne.

When it comes to describing the main source markets for Cologne, there are no big changes here. Once again, the city showed a healthy combination of domestic and foreign guests, business and leisure travelers. German travelers are still the biggest group of visitors to the city. They accounted for 4.26 million overnight stays. Guests from the UK made 223 thousand overnight stays in Cologne. The United Kingdom is the most important foreign source market for Cologne hotels, but the number of tourists from this country dropped by 8.1% because of Brexit. That being said, the city’s hospitality industry didn’t feel any negative effect because the second and third international source markets – the USA and the Netherlands – added 8.9% and 8.8% in 2019 to 219,094 and 194,834 overnight stays respectively.

At the moment, Cologne has a bright perspective as a center of tourism in Germany. The number of overnight stays has more than doubled since 2000, and the city is a well-developed center of science and congresses of different sizes. Taking into consideration the cheerful atmosphere and excellent cultural background, it is clear that Cologne hasn’t reached its limit yet and still has space to develop.

01.03.2020

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