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Scottish and English football fans dominate Euro 2024 travel

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6 months ago

June 13, 2024

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Scottish and English football fans dominate Euro 2024 travel

Germany: Thousands of football fans are preparing to converge on Germany for UEFA Euro 2024 – the 17th edition of the European Championships – and short-term rental hosts and property owners are hoping to benefit from Euros fever.

As 24 countries prepare to do battle for the Henri Delaunay trophy across 31 days of competition, starting this Friday [14 June], German authorities currently expect around 12 million tourists to visit the country throughout the duration of the tournament, with just under three million people lucky enough to secure coveted tickets for the matches themselves.

The following cities in Germany are also venues for Euro 2024: Berlin; Cologne; Dortmund; Düsseldorf; Frankfurt; Gelsenkirchen; Hamburg; Leipzig; Munich; and Stuttgart.

In its latest report, short-term rental data and analytics provider, AirDNA, has been crunching the data to track metrics such as demand, occupancy, supply and booking trends.

Understandably, the Euros are driving a notable surge in demand for short-term rentals across the host cities. In the ten host cities, there has already been a 23 per cent increase in demand for the group stage dates [14-26 June] compared to the two weeks prior.

Cities including Stuttgart [104 per cent increase], Gelsenkirchen [181 per cent] and Dortmund [98 per cent] are seeing the largest increases in short-term rentals bookings. In comparison, larger cities such as Berlin and Hamburg are not experiencing as big an uptick for tournament as they are large metropolitan areas that typically have abundant hotel options during the summer high season.

In the same period, occupancy rates in these cities have nearly doubled or tripled – Gelsenkirchen is a notable example with short-term rental occupancy rates soaring 170 per cent, reaching 52 per cent during the group stage. Berlin and Munich are lagging behind with no significant demand uptick for Euro 2024.

The most anticipated matches driving high short-term rental occupancy include:

Scotland v Hungary [Stuttgart – 23 June] and Scotland v Switzerland [Cologne – 19 June], both with an 88 per cent occupancy rate
Spain v Croatia [Berlin – 15 June] with an 83 per cent occupancy rate
Serbia v England [Gelsenkirchen – 16 June] with an 80 per cent occupancy rate

In Stuttgart, which hosts three of the top ten most anticipated matches, the average occupancy rate during group stage matches is 66 per cent – almost double the average occupancy rate of 34 per cent in the two weeks leading up to the tournament. In contrast, Berlin’s pre-match occupancy rate averages to 67 per cent, just one per cent less than the occupancy for Euro 2024 group stage games [68 per cent], partly due to the fact that Berlin sees consistently high occupancy rates during peak summer months, regardless of staging a large event.

In terms of rates, average nightly booked rates for group stage games vary, with Berlin at €179 per night and Frankfurt at €100 per night. Group stage dates are seeing a nine per cent rise in rates compared to the two weeks prior.

Meanwhile, travellers who have not booked their stays for Euro 2024 yet can expect to pay a premium, according to AirDNA. Available rates are currently more than 50 per cent higher than average booked rates [i.e. what guests who have already booked paid] in key cities – for example, average rates are 97 per cent higher than booked rates in Dortmund.

During the latter half of the tournament once the group stage has finished [after 26 June], some football fans will hold off on booking stays until they know the final destination of their team in the knock out stage lineup. Bookings for the round of 16, quarter final and semi final game days in the majority of cities are therefore likely to have much shorter lead times.

For the final at Berlin’s Olympiastadion on 14 July, demand will be at its peak, although a significant portion of bookings for stays locally will have been made within the 60 days leading up to the date of the final.

Meanwhile in the hotel segment, STR reports that Cologne is showing the most significant hotel bookings thus far, followed closely by Leipzig, Munich and Düsseldorf, while Hamburg and Berlin are once again showing the lowest jump in bookings of any of the Euro 2024 host cities.