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I recently attended Cape Town Routes Unlimited’s annual Access The Destination Workshop (ADW), where I had the privilege of hearing a talk by Conrad Mayer, the President of the Bavarian Hotel and Restaurant Association. He spoke about the lessons that Munich learned from Germany’s Soccer World Cup.

The biggest surprise (and what a great surprise it was!) was to hear him say that, 1,000 days before 2010, South Africa is better prepared than Germany was 1,000 days before it’s own World Cup.

Mr Mayer said that the World Cup changed Germany and changed the Germans. “Germany experienced an increase in its positive image - an increase which lasts to this day.

“The fact that Germany tried to be the perfect host gave its guests the advantage,” he said, adding that the World Cup was a priceless public relations success with 91% of visitors saying that, although they arrived as visitors, they left as friends.

During its Cup, Germany enjoyed 2.5 million overnight stays by foreign visitors and in June and July of 2006, the country’s hotel and hospitality industry recorded a growth of 8.5%, which translated to an increase of €200 million over the same period in the previous year. The Munich Tourism Association estimated that the event accounted for an additional 500,000 bed nights in its own area.

From a media point of view, most of the 2,500 media representatives who attended the event arrived travelled from one match to the next and generated 5 billion media contacts in the process.

Availability in Munich increased by 18% or 8,000 new beds (bringing the city’s total to 55,000). “The Lord Mayor of Munich as well as the Bavarian Hotel and Restaurant Association warned of taking advantage of the occasion by inflating prices, which would have seriously damaged the good reputation of the city. But most of the hoteliers fixed moderate prices: even though the hotel sector gained peak prices on the few days before, during and after the World Cup matches in Munich, there were hardly any complaints about price levels.

“But please don’t ask me, what is too little and what is too high. This was an endless discussion for us, too,” he said.

Getting the industry ready for the event took a lot of planning and congresses similar to the ADW were the cradle of success for the German tournament. “Munich founded a tourism working committee and a conference was held in 2005 to deal with the arrangements for the World Cup.”

The Bavarian Hotel & Restaurant Association prepared by surveying the Bavarian hospitality industry; conducting an internal self-image or friendliness survey; presenting multicultural seminars; preparing phrase books in the languages of the main FIFA nations; instituting service campaigns that included intercultural communications workshops; publishing a book on intercultural communications; preparing appropriate media releases; and informing members of publicity and advertising campaigns as well as FIFA’s regulations for public viewing (viewing is considered commercial when an entry fee is charged - in which case royalties must be paid to FIFA).

Mr Mayer said that although the World Cup increased demand, crowding-out occurred and regular guests were displaced, although they still came before and after the tournament. “Many regular guests could not be convinced to visit Munich during the World Cup - the usual reservations for conferences stopped [but] it was important to keep calm regarding selling of rooms to re-sellers: teams and venues were only announced 6 months before the event and until then only a few bookings were made. Up to 60% of optional rooms were cancelled 5 weeks before the World Cup and many establishments that expected bookings didn’t get them.”

Interestingly, Mr Mayer noted that soccer tourists move along major thoroughfares, which lead to empty restaurants in outlying areas.

Other observations he made were that:

The World Cup lead to an increase in visitors from North & South America;

Everybody in Germany wanted to watch the matches, which lead to a decrease in productivity;

The individual hotels that were successful depended on their usual strategies of pricing and marketing;

Mr Mayer’s own hotel experienced a decrease of 20% in room nights but an increase of 15% in revenue during the month of the tournament. In the month before the World Cup the increase was 33%;

Just as every country is different in its tourism structure, so every World Cup will have its own character;

One year after the event, Munich was still experiencing a large increase in arrivals and overnight stays;

The World Cup changed the nation on many levels - not least being the emotional: the Germans discovered that they aren’t naturally offish and that they do have a sense of humour!

The world’s image of Germany also changed as a result of the World Cup.

Mr Mayer concluded with John F. Kennedy’s famous saying: “Don’t ask what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country.”

So - what can you do for your country and its Soccer World Cup?