According to preliminary results released by the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) on Wednesday, the hospitality industry in Germany saw revenues in March 2026 drop both in real terms by 2.2% and in nominal terms by 1.3% when compared to February 2026, after adjusting for calendar and seasonal variations. When looking at year-on-year changes, revenues fell in real terms by 5.2% compared to March 2025, although they rose by 2.5% nominally. These figures place the real revenue for the hospitality sector at its lowest point since March 2022, when the effects of the COVID-19 crisis were still noticeable.
Looking back at February 2026, the sector recorded a real increase of 0.2% compared to January 2026 (a revision in the preliminary figures, updated from a 0.0% figure). Nominally, sales rose by 0.5% over January 2026 (revised from 0.4%).
Within this sector, hotels and other accommodation services reported that revenues for March 2026 decreased by 5.6% in real terms and 3.4% nominally compared to February 2026. Compared to the previous year, March 2025, the accommodation sector saw a real decline of 4.2%, alongside a nominal increase of 2.6%.
In the food service industry (gastronomy), revenues fell by 0.1% in real terms and rose by 0.2% nominally between February 2026 and March 2026. Furthermore, when compared to March 2025, the culinary sector experienced a significant real decline of 5.7%, offset by a nominal increase of 2.3%.
