“The hotel industry expects an occupancy rate of 70%”
The Minister of Tourism wants to be more than confident about the tourist season to come. It is also counting on a whole host of initiatives to attract the curious.
Lex Delles, Minister of Tourism
The Minister of Tourism wants to be more than confident about the tourist season to come. It is also counting on a whole host of initiatives to attract the curious.
We have written it several times, one of the sectors most impacted by the pandemic is none other than tourism. This has paid a heavy price for the successive confinements decreed in the four parts of the world, as well as in Luxembourg. Although Luxembourg tourism is gradually recovering according to the latest Statec data, the figures for the 1st quarter of 2022 remain still below the levels of 2019 (around 30%, both in terms of arrivals than nights).
It does not matter for Lex Delles (DP), the Minister of Tourism. After two years of pandemic, the latter wants to be more confident than ever about the coming summer. “Let us first differentiate between so-called “business” tourism and “leisure” tourism. With regard to the first, during the crisis, we went more into a hybrid mode with remote work. Fortunately, Luxembourg already had the necessary infrastructure for this. Today, we notice that the face-to-face is back in force with a lot of reservations in Luxembourg for September and October. The figures are up sharply for the third quarter of 2022. However, it is clear that the hybrid mode will last over time.
A new advantage
Which can also be a significant asset, according to the minister. “Sometimes we fail to attract congresses of several thousand people because we do not always reserve the necessary structures to accommodate so many people. Thanks to the hybrid mode, Luxembourg can now position itself for other conferences for Luxembourg was not the first choice destination.”
With regard to so-called “leisure” tourism, Lex Delles also speaks of a positive development for 2022. “We noticed a clear recovery in the months of May and June, which coincided with the end of most sanitary restrictions”, he confirms. Already in 2021, the first signs of tourism recovery had already been felt. “In 2019, the total number of overnight stays (hotels, campsites, youth hostels) was 2.85 million for a total arrivals of 1.17 million. In 2020, the first year of the crisis, the number of overnight stays fell to 1.52 million for a total of 660,000 arrivals. In 2021, overnight stays rose slightly to 1.58 million.
A national tourism strategy
It is therefore clear that the Minister aims to return to pre-crisis figures for this year 2022 or at least to get closer to them. “We are counting in particular on tourists from neighboring or nearby countries who are the most numerous to go to Luxembourg each time: Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany”, specifies the Minister.
And tourism to achieve this, the ministry has put in place a national strategy which will therefore apply for this next season. “We want to give each tourist much more than he expects when visiting Luxembourg. This is why we want to adopt a strategy aimed at several target groups: those who wish to explore the country on their own, those who are nature and environment lovers as well as those who only come for a short time to get away.”
Investments
This requires several investments. “This has been done in particular at the level of hiking, but also at the level of cycle tourism”, notes the Minister. But that’s not all, with the campaign “Lëtzebuerg, dat ass Vakanz” (Luxembourg is the holidays, in French) focuses this year on gastronomic tourism with the project “Vakanz geneissen(Enjoy your vacation, in French).
Concretely, this project consists in bringing together a hundred people around a table, installed on idyllic tourist sites. As a mobile installation, the table will be set up and taken down at six different locations during the weekends from July 23 to August 28, 2022. “The dinners allow you to savor regional products and showcase local know-how national”, announces Lex Delles.
Thanks to these various initiatives, the ministry expects a positive start to the 2022 tourist season. “The hotel industry expects an occupancy rate of 60-70% for the months of May and June 2022. not two million overnight stays or 100,000 overnight stays in hostels. We do not want to put on the quantity, but rather on the quality of tourism.
We are not seeing two million overnight stays this year. We do not want to put on the quantity, but rather on the quality of tourism.
Lex Delles, Minister of Tourism
And then, the ministry now benefits from a particularly useful tool for counting and analyzing tourist attendance. “We have recently been able to know the route of people arriving in Luxembourg as well as their country of origin, via their telephone. By this means, we also manage to identify tourists who come only for a single day, which was difficult to do in the past,” explains the minister.
“The idea being to be able to differentiate between tourists who only come to Luxembourg for one day and who stay elsewhere in the Greater Region and those who stay in the Grand Duchy during their stay. This will also allow us to target our advertising. For example: if we see that a person has visited the castle of Vianden, we could redirect them to other castles, etc.
If the image of a country of “business” sticks to the skin of Luxembourg, Lex Delles ensures that the Grand Duchy is also a “tourist destination” of choice. “For Luxembourgers or for the inhabitants of the Greater Region, Luxembourg is perhaps not a tourist destination and that is precisely why we have set up this campaign because we want to show that our country is a destination of choice. Before the crisis, there were tourists who came from England, Scandinavian countries, China and even the United States. These people issued for tourist purposes.
For Lex Delles, the Grand Duchy has its own specificities which are enough to seduce more than one. “Luxembourg has five very different regions on a territory that is nevertheless limited, which is very rare. Not to mention that we have a European capital with a formidable heritage registered with Unesco. I myself rediscovered the city during a guided tour a few years ago. I discovered places that I have never seen and I invite residents or border workers to do the same. In the north of the country, you have nature, huge forests, hiking possibilities as well as castles. To the south, in the Moselle, 20 minutes from the capital, you can find vineyards as well as picturesque villages. In short, despite its size, Luxembourg is full of different landscapes that allow a total change of scenery.
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