More cities in the Mediterranean want to position themselves as standalone destinations and profit from the segment’s continuous growth, including on the German market.
City trips are the fastest-growing part of the international leisure travel market and now represent 22% of all outbound holiday trips worldwide, according to the World Travel Monitor from researchers IPK International. Germans make about 25 million trips a year to cities within the country, above all Berlin, Hamburg and Munich, while their top foreign city destinations are London, Paris, Amsterdam, Vienna, Barcelona and Prague, this year’s annual Reiseanalyse of German travel trends showed.
Tour operators are generally benefiting from this trend by offering packages containing not just transport and accommodation but a wide range of destination activities such as tours, excursions and events (especially musicals). TUI, for example, said it is very satisfied with its city trips business. Dertour’s city trips manager Frank Götze is also pleased with sales, and noted: “Lisbon and Amsterdam are growing fast at double-digit rates.” FTI’s Olaf Kistenmacher agreed: “Demand for experience-filled city trips is growing”.
Two cities in focus in 2016 will be Wroclaw in Poland and San Sebastian in Spain, the joint European Cultural Capitals. There will be diverse festivals, events, exhibitions and other activities in both cities during the year.
Meanwhile, various Mediterranean coastal cities want to try to copy the success of Barcelona and position themselves as standalone city trip destinations, rather than being just excursions for beach holidaymakers. Valletta, Palma, Antalya and Tunis, for example, are developing products and attractions to draw more off-season visitors.
The Maltese capital hopes to profit from its forthcoming status as European Cultural Capital in 2018. At present, nearly all visitors to the Mediterranean island visit the city but only 8% stay overnight there. Valletta is pinning its hopes on its rich cultural heritage and diverse attractions. Dertour has now added the destination to its city trips brochure while FTI offers various historic tours of the city. FTI’s Kistenmacher says Valletta is successfully building up tourism attractions, such as the Baroque Festival in January, “which reflect the mentality and culture of the destination, and are not linked to one season”.
Palma is making progress with its strategy of positioning itself as a year-round city destination, according to Pedro Homar, director of Fundación 365, which is heading the initiative. The number of visitors to Palma, including cruise passengers and day-trippers, increased to about 5.7 million in 2014. The Mallorcan capital is promoting its cultural highlights, including diverse museums and as a new attraction the gardens in the Marivent Palace, the royal summer residence, as well as shopping and gastronomy. Constanze Köhler, head of TUI’s city trips product management, even sees Palma as “an alternative to Christmas shopping in New York” and believes the number of city visitors can easily be doubled.
Antalya also has similar potential, with its mix of Western lifestyle, historic centre, shopping malls and good restaurants as well as the mild temperatures, Köhler says. Altan Tarkci, Thomas Cook’s senior product manager for Turkey and North Africa, says Antalya is still largely unknown as a city destination “but it is getting more popular as an individual destination”.
In contrast, Tunis has suffered major setbacks this year with the terrorist attacks on the Bardo Museum and on security forces in the city centre. Andrea Philippi, from the Tunisian tourist office in Germany, said the capital had just started to establish itself as a ‘hidden’ city destination. “Even though we are going through difficult times at present, we still expect Tunis will develop into an established city destination in the long run,” she adds.
