More German tourists expected next year

More German tourists expected next year

In 2017, Air Berlin, which brought thousands of tourists into Jersey on direct flights from several cities, collapsed.

Subsequently, the number of German visitors declined sharply, with one tour guide describing the impact on her business as ‘dreadful’.

But earlier this year, it was announced that Eurowings was to operate a number of scheduled services between Jersey and Germany, increasing the number of seats to the Island from the country by 84 per cent to 15,000.

However, the development came too late for tour operators to market trips to Jersey effectively and a direct weekly schedule service from Hamburg had to be axed.

But Keith Beecham, chief executive of Visit Jersey, has said: ‘We are working very hard on the German market and we have got a German representative who is talking to German tour operators. They actually held a meeting with German tour operators just within the last few weeks. We know that there is strong demand from Germany, so it is up to us to make sure that we have got the hotels for them that they want to stay in.

‘I am optimistic that we will see growth next year.’

This week it was announced that the number of French visitors coming to Jersey had increased by 25 per cent, up to 66,000 from January until June compared to the same time last year.

However, Mr Beecham added that thousands more could have come to the Island if Manche Iles Express had not experienced severe technical issues with one of its two ferries.

‘We would have seen an impact from that. One of their boats was out of action for several weeks and they seem to bring more French people into Jersey than Jersey people going to France,’ he said.

‘I think it is fair to say that we would have seen more French people coming into Jersey if this had not happened – it would not have had an insignificant impact.

‘We are probably talking a number of thousands.’

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