Düsseldorf (dpa/lnw) – According to the Dehoga industry association, the hospitality industry in North Rhine-Westphalia will not reach the pre-Corona level this year either, despite strong growth. “2022 is the best “Corona year”,” said the spokesman for Dehoga NRW, Thorsten Hellwig, on Tuesday with a view to significantly increased sales this year. However, the high inflation must be taken into account. Real sales are expected to remain below the pre-crisis level for the third year in a row.
In particular, rising costs for energy, food and staff as well as the shortage of workers remain the major challenges for restaurateurs and hoteliers in NRW. In addition, there is the risk that fewer guests will come due to financial difficulties or uncertainties or that less will be consumed. The earlier the state support measures for companies and citizens took effect, the better it was for the hospitality industry and guests, because that way a bit of security could be given, it said. It is currently unclear when the industry will actually reach the pre-corona level of 2019.
The NRW hospitality industry achieved an increase in sales of 64.1 percent in the first nine months of 2022, as reported by the State Statistical Office on Tuesday. Price-adjusted sales increased by 54.5 percent. The hotel industry caught up particularly clearly, as figures for September show. However, the turnover of the entire NRW hospitality industry in the first nine months of 2022 was 4.7 percent below that in the same period of 2019. In real terms it was even 16 percent less than three years ago by the end of September.