Munich sees Arab summer

Munich is experiencing a strange summer with pretty cool and unusual temperatures, which seem to be attracting more Arab travelers from the Gulf region than ever before.

The city of Munich is coming in at number four of the top destinations in Europe for travelers from Middle East this year.

Women are wearing their black niqabs, carrying big shopping bags, accompanied by husbands buying ice cream for the kids while paying with 100 euro bills (that’s US$135 for an ice cream that only costs 2 euros).

It is the time when Ferraris, Maseratis, and Porsches keep roaring up and down the exclusive Maxilimanstrasse of Munich which has a speed limit of 30-50 km, but this is of no concern to the drivers who are sitting on top of their Cabriolets while engines are roaring and everybody is turning around in astonishment.

The explanation? While nobody is walking on streets back in Dubai or elsewhere in the Gulf region – the noise of the powerful engines remains unheard, and driving is less fun as air conditioning blows your head off and drowns out the noise when driving there.

Things are different in Munich where everybody stops in disbelief to see the Ferraris racing up and down the main roads at high speed – where the fine paid for the fun does little harm to the wallet.

Arab women prefer to use the quiet rischka for the return to the hotel and have the choice to use the most peculiar rischkas coming as a boat, barrel, banana seldom look normal, with pedaling Germans charging a fortune for a short ride.

Famous Marienplatz in Munich seems like being in Dubai and is a busy meeting place between black-veiled women hurling quickly into and out of shops.

But it is not only Ferraris. More and more Arabs are using the public transport, like the Metro and Tram, to get around with big prams and huge shopping bags. The prams, bicycles, and umbrellas are all left behind after their holiday is over.

On a normal weekday, shops like Tiffany or Louis Vuitton in the heart of Munich are closing their doors, leaving many Arab women queuing outside. This would never happen at any other time of the year.

Photo © Elisabeth Lang

Photo © Elisabeth Lang

But there are also some negative aspects to be seen in the crowded pedestrian areas in Munich where more and more Salafists are offering a Koran translated into German to the Germans.

“Why is that allowed?” affluent Arab travelers ask me in concern, “the police should interfere.”

Germany remained one of the most popular destinations for Middle East travelers with over 259,427 overnight stays in 2013. The Gulf region was one of the 6 markets which generated more than half of the absolute increase in overnight stays in 2013 and are the big spenders with an average spending of € 4,415 (US$6,000) per holiday trip, but there is no limit to the top.

About 45% percent come from Saudi Arabia, 20% from Dubai, and the rest from Bahrain, Qatar, etc.

It is hot in all senses in the Middle East, and Dubai is experiencing for the first time in history a decline in tourism this summer.

With data from July, Dubai reported:

– increases in supply (+8.3 percent) and decreases in demand (-4.5 percent);
– an 11.8-percent decline in occupancy to 45.4 percent;
– a 5.0-percent increase in average daily rate to AED638.66; and
– a 7.4-percent decline in RevPAR to AED290.23.
“Dubai reported the lowest occupancy levels of any month for the last 18 years, when STR Global began tracking hotel performance for the market,” Elizabeth Winkle, Managing Director of STR Global, said in a statement.

In June, the Emirate posted a 4.2 percent decrease in RevPAR, down to US$134.41.

Still, the downturn may be only temporary: Winkle noted that July is one of the hottest months within the region, and that this year, the month coincided with the fasting month of Ramadan.

The overall negative trend was on top of growing supply, Winkle added, and the Emirate certainly has a positive forecast.

Dubai plans to almost double the number of hotel rooms by 2020 as it expects a surge of visitors to the Emirate ahead of that.

Meanwhile, cities like Munich, London, Paris, and Geneva are reporting an Arab boom during this month of August even with its weather that is quite miserable, cold, and rainy. Lots of money is being spilled into luxury hotels, luxury shops, and department stores thanks to Arab travelers who simply enjoy the cold weather which is as cold as their winter with temperatures dropping down to 13° on some days.

“We like that, and we enjoy the rain,” they said, “we have had hardly any rain in the last years.”