THE number of Germans coming to the Island has increased by around 60 per cent in the last nine years thanks to effective marketing and a close co-operation between travel companies, according to Visit Jersey.
Keith Beecham, chief executive for Visit Jersey, said: ‘Germany is a success story for Jersey once again this year with a further increase in visitor numbers.
Ernst Topf, co-founder of Jersey Special Tours said: ‘Yes, we have definitely seen an increase. I think we have seen more groups and less individuals.
‘I came to Jersey in 1964 to learn English and I loved it. One thing led to another and I ended up staying here.’
Asked why he believed Jersey was seeing more German tourists, Mr Topf said: There are several reasons, one being the instability in the Middle East at the moment.
‘Places like Egypt were fairly popular with the German market but now there have been problems, they have begun to look elsewhere.
‘I think Jersey has also been marketing itself very well in Germany. The Island is something quite special, quite unique and different from Europe and I think they have put that across very well.’
Mr Topf also believed that visiting German television stations had played a big part in raising awareness of the Island.
Earlier this year, German primetime TV programme ‘Nordseereport Spezial’, featured a segment on Jersey and was reported to have been watched by about 920,000 viewers.
Mr Topf added that the increase in direct flights had made it easier to come to the Island, eliminating the need to transfer at a UK airport. He said: ‘The flights save people a lot of time. Previously you would have to fly through Gatwick or Heathrow.
‘Sometimes they can be a bit more expensive than flying via London but I think for the convenience, people are happy to pay the full fare.’
Eva Köhler, operations and reservations coordinator for travel agency, Bontour Incoming, said that in the past few years, the German market had grown and that her company had seen more enquiries from German tour operators.
She added: ‘Not just the German market but also the German-speaking market has grown so we are seeing visitors come from other countries, such as Austria and Switzerland.
‘The introduction of a number of chartered and scheduled flights from the continent, have made the Island more attractive for the German market.’
Globalis, a German tour operator, began promoting Jersey in 2012 and run direct flights taking from April until June on Wednesdays.
Ms Köhler said: ‘Normally, the company’s policy is to drop destinations after two years but as Jersey has been so successful, it has been running for around four.’
German visitors are reported to spend on average £807 per person – the highest expenditure compared to any other visitor.
The sum is more than 60 per cent higher than the average spend of a visitor from the UK and 87 per cent more the average French visitor.
Ms Köhler said: ‘Most of the German visitors are fairly financially secure, so they are happy to indulge and spend a little bit extra on their holiday, which is good for local business.’
In 2012, a call was issued for more German-speaking guides to meet demand for the increasing number of visiting German tourists.
Ms Köhler said that there was still a shortage.
She said: ‘In Jersey, the German-speaking guides are mainly retired people who are often away from the Island, enjoying their retirement. We are always keen to recruit new guides, fluent in German.’
Trudie Hairon, a guide for Jersey Walk Adventures said that there had been a noticeable rise in the number of German visitors coming to the Island.
The guide, who moved to Jersey from Munich in 2009, said: ‘We are definitely seeing an increase in both groups and individuals.
‘We normally have around two to four German people in most of our groups. They are keen walkers, they like their cliff paths, they are interested in nature and they are really interested in the culture.
‘The beaches, town and the countryside are all cleaner too, compared to other tourist destinations such as Malta and a number of places in the Mediterranean.’
She added that the tourists find that Islanders are friendly. ‘If they are stood looking at a map often people will stop and ask if they can help,’ Mrs Hairon said.
‘A lot of the visitors come from quite large cities like Munich and Frankfurt so they think it’s remarkable. They really like that.
‘The bus service is also very good too, you can get around fairly easily.
‘Many of the tourists who come to the Island and hire a car have said that they did not really need it in the end as the public transport was fairly good.’
When asked if she thought that she made the right decision by moving to the Island, she said: ‘Absolutely, yes. The only thing I miss about Germany is the bread.’
‘I think the direct flights have definitely had an impact. There are a lot of Germans coming to the Island who do not like having to fly to Heathrow from Germany and then transferring over to Gatwick.
‘Quite a high percentage of visitors from Eastern Germany do not have a good grasp of English too so it can be quite daunting going through a UK airport.
‘I also do coach tours and try to go past the south-eastern corner of the Island twice in the same day, just so they can see the effect of the tides. It is very different from the German coast, they are blown away by the tidal range.
‘The War Tunnels are also very popular. A lot of them have said that they thought it was a brilliant documentation of what took place. They also appreciate how there is no hostility towards them and I think Islanders can understand that they are from a totally different generation.’
Danielle and Christian Hagemeyer travelled to the Island from Haan, near Düsseldorf and were part of a group going on a low-tide walk around La Rocque.
Mr Hagemeyer said: ‘We were looking for somewhere not everyone goes, not a regular tourist destination.
‘I really think we found it – we like it here. I like how the countryside is so near to the coast.
‘Since we have been here, the weather has been very good too.
‘Everything seems calm here, people seem to have a lot more time and it does not seem hectic.
‘We could have flown direct from Düsseldorf but we wanted to see France too. We drove down to Saint Malo and left our car there.’
Mr Hagemeyer said that he heard about Jersey from a colleague.
Mrs Hagemeyer added: ‘I think that life on an Island is very different to simply living on a coast, the culture is very interesting.’
‘We have only been here for two days so far but yesterday the weather was very good so we went to St Brelade’s beach.
Mr Hagemeyer said: ‘I think it is important that the Island stays how it is, we do not want too many tourists here. You could have big all-inclusive hotels going up everywhere but I think it is better the way it is.
LAST year, 8,346 people arrived in Jersey using the direct flights from German cities.
Currently, flights operate to the Island from Düsseldorf, Hannover, Stuttgart, Munich and Hamburg – via Düsseldorf.
Air Berlin’s Düsseldorf route operates for the longest number of weeks. Last year it ran from 26 April to 20 September. This year that has been extended to 17 October.
Figures for April and May this year show that nearly 4,000 passengers arrived in Jersey on the direct flights from Germany – an increase of around 300 passengers in comparison to the same time period in 2014.
A Ports of Jersey spokesman said that there would be an
increase of 3,500 seats available from German airports to
Jersey this year due to the season being extended by around four weeks.
The spokesman added that the Ports of Jersey would continue to work closely with airlines and tour operators to provide further assistance to encourage growth in the sector.
Theresa Krohn, spokeswoman for Air Berlin, said: ‘We have been really satisfied with the development of our current routes to Jersey.
‘We have already put the Jersey to Germany direct flights on sale for summer 2016.
