Current DEHOGA survey: Christmas and New Year's Eve business 2022: better than 2021, but worse than 2019

- November sales down 8.5 % compared to 2019

- Gas and electricity price brake: eliminate disadvantage for RLM customers pandemic of affected businesses

DEHOGA President Guido Zöllick
© Deutscher Hotel- und Gaststättenverband e.V. (DEHOGA Bundesverband)
09.12.2022
Source:  Company news

The Christmas and New Year's Eve business, which is extremely important for restaurateurs and hoteliers, is also doing worse this year than in the pre-crisis year 2019, according to 60.1 per cent of entrepreneurs in a recent survey by the German Hotel and Restaurant Association (DEHOGA Bundesverband). November, as a prelude to the year-end business, also showed a nominal decline in turnover of 8.5 per cent compared to 2019. For the period from January to November 2022, establishments are recording a minus of 8.0 per cent. Rising energy costs are still the biggest challenge for 89.3 per cent of business owners, followed by high food and personnel costs (81.1% and 67.7%). Thus, 41.9 per cent are looking forward to the coming year with apprehension, fearing that they will end up in the red. "The gas and electricity price brake adopted by the federal government is a suitable measure to relieve the burden on consumers and companies alike. However, the reference period for RLM customers, who were closed for almost five months in 2021, must be changed," DEHOGA President Guido Zöllick warns.

The current plans of the Federal Government stipulate that for businesses with a consumption of more than 1.5 million kilowatt hours of gas and more than 100,000 kilowatt hours of electricity, the year 2021 will be taken as the reference period. In 2021, however, businesses such as hotels, restaurants or pubs were in lockdown from January into May. Due to the corona-related closures, the consumption values in 2021 were in some cases up to 35 percent below those of 2019 "We expect that the consumption of 2022 and not of 2021 will be used for these businesses when calculating the gas and electricity price brake," explains Guido Zöllick.

To make matters worse, the booking and reservation situation for December is proving to be mixed. The current booking status for the Christmas business is described by 32.2 per cent of the survey participants as good, 34.5 per cent as satisfactory and 33.3 per cent as poor. "However, we also know that guests are booking at much shorter notice these days. So there is still hope for the revival of the Christmas and New Year's Eve business," says DEHOGA President Zöllick.

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