Best year in history of city’s tourism – 9.7 per cent more visitors, 8.6 per cent more overnight stays – Big increase in German and international vacationers – Attractive congress and conference destination
COLOGNE — Tourism to Cologne continued to increase in 2011, achieving a new record by beating the previous record from 2010. Last year a total of 2.84 million hotel guests came to Cologne and altogether spent 4.97 million overnight stays. Compared to the previous year, this represents an increase of 9.7 per cent in terms of guest arrivals and 8.6 per cent in terms of overnight stays. In comparison, Germany had an overall increase in overnight stays of 4 per cent and the state of North Rhine-Westphalia had an increase of 5 per cent.
Elisabeth Thelen, Chairwoman of the Supervisory Board of Cologne Tourist Board, says: “Once again Cologne was able to further consolidate its position as one of the most popular destinations in Germany and to achieve significant growth in the most important source markets. The year’s results demonstrate that Cologne Tourist Board’s strategies are bearing fruit. With a total turnover of 6.8 billion euros, tourism represents a major source of income for Cologne and brought the city’s coffers more than 170 million euros in returns.”
Foreign guests made up 874,443 visits and a marked increase of 11 per cent, continuing to represent an overall share of 34 per cent of visitors to the city. Josef Sommer, Managing Director of Cologne Tourist Board, explains: “Special events such as the Carnival, the Christmas markets or successful large trade fairs such as imm or Anuga FoodTec continue to attract more international visitors and business travellers to Cologne. In 2011, the tourist trade in Cologne developed more dynamically than in any other German city. Our goal for 2012 is to surpass 5 million overnight stays.”
2011 source market results
A look at the visitors’ home countries reveals several interesting facts. The trend of vacationing at home remains strong — with 1.97 million visitors (a rise of 9.1 per cent), Germany is still the most important source market for Cologne. Most of the foreign visitors in 2011 came from Great Britain (109,488 / up by 10.5 per cent) and the United States (81,802 / up by 24.3 per cent). The number of guests arriving from these countries has greatly increased with the more stable economic climate. Cologne also attracted a lot of visitors from its neighbouring countries. The number of visitors from the Netherlands rose by 11.4 per cent to 92,634, while Belgium (59,823) and France (52,129) increased their share of visitors by 11.5 per cent and 4.9 per cent respectively. One reason for this is the surging popularity of the high-speed Thalys train connection from Paris and Brussels. The number of guests from Switzerland also rose significantly to 42,625 visitors — an increase of 12.2 per cent.
Cologne also boasted a tremendous increase in visitors from Turkey (up by 34.4 per cent) and Russia (up by 35.7 per cent). The Russian market represents 3.5 per cent of international overnight stays — a considerable share for one country. The statistics for tax-free shopping showed that Russian guests spent 22.6 per cent more than they did the year before. In Russia, as in the Arab Gulf states (9,962 visitors / up by 24.9 per cent), health tourism is a particularly big draw.
The emerging markets of India (5,462 visitors) and China (20,875 visitors) are particularly noteworthy, with a rise of 11.4 per cent and 27.5 per cent respectively. Since 2006, Cologne Tourist Board has been actively promoting the city to the Indian market via the India Pool of the German National Tourist Board (GNTB), and many years of active market placement in China are now also having an impact. The tourist office’s efforts in Brazil have also proved to be fruitful, resulting in a rise in visitors of 28.7 per cent. Compared to 2005, when the Confederations Cup took place in Cologne, the number of visitors from Brazil has actually doubled. Cologne Tourist Board visited several Brazilian cities as a part of a GNTB road show in 2011 and was able to expand its contacts there considerably — especially in line with the new town twinning of Cologne and Rio de Janeiro.
Cologne hosted 42,750 events in 2010
In June 2011, results from the “Cologne Conference Barometer”, which was commissioned by the Cologne Convention Bureau (CCB), were presented for the second time. According to the study, in 2010 Cologne hosted 42,750 events attended by 3.3 million participants. In general, Cologne has become increasingly important for event organizers and is one of Germany’s leading conference destinations. This positive trend is confirmed by the nationwide study “Meeting & Event Barometer”, which ranks the Cologne-Düsseldorf region as the third most popular location for events after Berlin/Potsdam and the Rhine-Main region surrounding Frankfurt.Potential for future development can be found in the numerous research institutes, universities and other academic institutions of Cologne, which use events as a common instrument for sharing and exchanging knowledge. That is why CCB intensified its contacts with universities and academic institutions in 2011 and will continue to cultivate these partners in 2012. Together with KölnKongress, CCB aims to attract more academic conferences to the city. One of these is the World Congress of Pathology, which will come to Cologne for the first time in 2016.
In order to compete internationally, CCB works closely together with the convention bureau DÜSSELDORF. The two cities along the Rhine placed successfully in the 2011 state-wide competition Erlebnis.NRW with their project “KÖLNDÜSSELDORF — The Meetropolis”, which was extended in 2011 and will implement a new marketing campaign in time for IMEX 2012, which will focus on international markets.
Another highlight of the Cologne MICE industry in 2011 was the 10th Cologne Congress and Event Day, which was organised by CCB, KölnKongress and the Cologne Chamber of Industry and Commerce and attracted 50 exhibitors and 700 trade visitors.
Outlook for 2012
Focus on “Business Destination Cologne”
After last year’s focus on the theme “City of Water”, Cologne Tourist Board is introducing its 2012 marketing activities under the motto “Business Destination Cologne”. Inspired by the German National Tourist Board’s motto for this year, “Business Destination Germany”, Cologne Tourist Board — under the leadership of the Cologne Convention Bureau — aims to highlight the city’s activities in the business segment. One marketing measure is the Cologne BizzBox, a portfolio combining six different magazines that showcase various facets of Cologne as a business destination. Similar information will also be gathered and showcased on the website www.conventioncologne.de. In addition, shared activities are being planned with the German Convention Bureau, including a joint event for the Austrian meeting industry.
Activities and projects
On the occasion of the 25-year anniversary of the partnership between the cities of Cologne and Beijing, Cologne is celebrating a special China Year in 2012. Featuring a broad programme of events, it represents a forum for exchanging new impulses and fostering future cooperation. One highlight will be the “NRW-China Celebration” from 14th to 16th September 2012, which is being organised by the state government of North Rhine-Westphalia and the City of Cologne. Cologne Tourist Board is highlighting the 2012 China Year in its marketing activities and also supported the City of Cologne in developing the promotional website www.chinajahr-koeln.de.
Since spring 2009, the health pool “Health Cologne” project, which is led by Cologne Tourist Board, has been active in the health tourism sector. Once again the project has been able to attract numerous partners from the clinic, hotel, tourism and high-end retail sectors for 2012. With the help of the Cologne Chamber of Commerce and Industry, these partners will appeal to customers in the markets of Russia, the Arab Gulf states, the USA and the UK. Accordingly, the popular brochure “Health Cologne” will once again be published in Russian, Arabic and English this year and will be distributed at all leading trade fairs and road shows in the source markets.
Activities on the German market will be intensified by developing an even closer cooperation with Deutsche Bahn. One instance of this was a multi-page Cologne special in the Deutsche Bahn customer magazine DB mobil, which was distributed in all trains across Germany at the beginning of the year. More than 20,000 train travellers took part in the accompanying competition to win several trips to Cologne.
In terms of online activities, the website www.koelntourismus.de boasts a steady increase in visitors and page views and will be relaunched in 2012 with optimized design, content and technical features. The online shop “der-koelnshop.de” was relaunched at the end of 2011 and is already experiencing a significant increase in turnover. Within the area of mobile internet activities, the “Köln-Guide” app will soon be released in a bilingual version. And finally, Cologne Tourist Board has been active on web 2.0 platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. As a result, the community of “VisitKoeln” fans and followers has grown steadily since 2010. Further targeted social media campaigns are in the pipeline for 2012.
