Bad weather, floods, and Covid restrictions have certainly spoiled the summer of 2021. Our colleagues from RTL spoke to a number of people from the tourism sector about the challenges they faced over the past weeks.
Tom Bellioun from the Luxembourg City Tourism Office commented: “Slowly yet steadily, things are improving, but we are still nowhere near pre-pandemic times. The mix of bad weather and Covid is really an unfortunate mix.”
It used to be that between 60 and 70 guided tours would take place on a single day, a number which currently only stands at ten: “We also see that fewer guests have travelled from far away than what used to be the case.”
In particular, business-related travel has failed to pick up the pace, as François Koepp from the Horesca Federation laments: “At the moment, most in the hospitality sector operate at 30 to 35% capacity. Business travel usually make up about two thirds of all hotel stays in Luxembourg City.”
The north of the Grand Duchy paints a different picture. The camping site in Berdorf already counted 30,000 visitors this year, more than in 2019 before the start of the pandemic. It seems that nature still represents a more attractive destination than cities do at the moment.
