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Berlin (dpa) - Empty beaches and empty exhibition halls: The corona pandemic continues to affect the travel industry, which has been spoiled for success for many years.
The International Tourism Exchange (ITB), which starts today, takes place online and exclusively for trade visitors (until March 12).
The industry is demanding guidelines and perspectives from the federal government as to when things can really start again.
Travel agencies and tour operators have largely lost the current year economically, although people are generally in a travel mood.
"It would be considered a success if we achieved around 50 percent of the 2019 sales volume for the travel agency and tour operator market," said Norbert Fiebig, President of the DRV travel association recently.
After the record year 2018/2019, sales from organized travel during the Corona crisis fell by 65 percent to 12.5 billion euros in the past tourism year 2019/2020.
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However, the uncertainty about the further development of the pandemic is causing many sun worshipers to hesitate.
According to a study, vacation trips are still high on the wish lists of people in Germany, but 38 percent do not yet know whether they will decide to do so this year.
According to the Research Association for Holidays and Travel (FUR), this is more than twice as much as in the previous year.
Almost half are planning a vacation trip.
"Whether and how you travel depends largely on the possibilities in the pandemic," explained tourism expert Martin Lohmann.
The travel association DRV calls for systematic corona tests instead of quarantine after travelers return from abroad and more speed with vaccinations.
Industry leader Tui is already relying on a restart of the important Mallorca business during the Easter holidays.
"The hotel industry has prepared intensively to offer safe and responsible holidays," said Tui Germany boss Marek Andryszak before the start of the ITB.
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There should be a cautious opening on the favorite island of the German citizens, for example with the start of a Robinson Club and the first flights of the group airline Tuifly from the second half of March.
Tui canceled trips to the other Balearic islands of Ibiza, Menorca and Formentera as well as most of mainland Spain until mid-April.
Most recently, Spain was classified as a normal risk area by the Robert Koch Institute - that is, a country without exceptionally high levels of new corona infections.
The industry expects the trend towards holidays in their own country to continue this year.
According to a survey by the ADAC, around two thirds of people particularly focus on destinations between Rügen and Garmisch-Partenkirchen.
Last year, the corona pandemic stopped the trend towards foreign holidays, not least because of travel warnings for most countries.
So far, however, there has been no clear opening perspective for holidays in one's own country, as the German Tourism Association (DTV) repeatedly complains.
According to the assessment of the German National Tourist Board (DZT), which promotes Germany as a travel destination abroad, destinations between Rügen and Garmisch-Partenkirchen could benefit from people's desire to travel around the world.
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