The German city of Cologne’s visitor arrivals are up 11.3% to 1,756,377, according to new figures from the city’s tourist board.
Overnight stays also recorded a 13.1% increase on the back of strong incentives, trade fair and congress business.
Tourism chiefs say important source markets for Cologne are recovering well too.
Josef Sommer, CEO of the Cologne Tourist Board described the half-year results as “a very positive development” and also continuing to increase.
One incentive in the first half of this year was the IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship 2017, which brought a large number of visitors to Cologne, as well as a busy conferencing schedule for the city.
Koelnmesse staged strong trade fairs such as imm cologne with LivingKitchen, IDS and interzum in the first half of this year. The figures for visitors from abroad have shown even bigger increases – up to14.6% in arrivals and 15% in overnight stays.
Important source markets for Cologne showing growth include:
· Russian visitors increasing overnight stays by 97.5%
· Chinese visitors up 17.9%
· US visitors up 11.3%
· Traditional markets such as Italy (25% increase) and Spain (a 14.3% increase) also grew significantly.
· Austrian and Swiss visitors were responsible for 17.2% and 18.8% increases in overnight stays respectively.
There was, however, a marked decrease in visitors from the United Kingdom, down 4.4%.
Image courtesy of the Cologne Tourist Board
