The business travel and to a lesser extent the MICE are back in Germany. This is borne out by the report recently published by the German authorities, who have joined forces with the EVVC (European Association of Event Centres) for this study. barometer 2022-2023. Admittedly, business travel is still below pre-Covid volumes, but the number of international business trips to Germany will more than double by 2022 compared with the previous year. By increasing from 5 to 11 million, it has made it possible to recover 70% of 2019 volumes. This recovery has enabled Germany to extend its lead at the top of the European business travel rankings. " In terms of international competition, theGermany further strengthened its position as Europe's leading business travel destination, with 9.2 million business trips, clearly ahead of France (4 million business trips) and Spain (2.9 million) "the authors of the report.
These trips helped to get the events business back on track. The German Convention Bureau estimates that the majority (60 %) of business trips from Europe to Germany were for events linked to the MICEincluding trade fairs. The figure reached 67% for non-European travellers. Even so, the recovery in MICE activity remains limited compared with pre-pandemic volumes, having been cut back by the first few months of last year, during which restrictions persisted. Last year, the events sector recovered half (48.5%) of its 2019 volumes. But excluding this period, the figure rises to 66%, according to the German Convention Bureau. What's more, Germany is no exception to the general trend of a massive decline in virtual. According to the GCB barometer, hybrid events attracted 28.5 million participants last year, compared with 36.3 million in 2021. And virtual events have fallen from 327 million participants to 53.4 million.
