Growing interest in city trips and city tours
As Darmstadt Marketing writes in a press release, the positive trend in tourism continues: With 780,787 overnight stays in 2024 (+6.2 %), Darmstadt has a clear growth and is therefore above the nationwide (+1.9 %) and Hessian average (+3.2 %). The international market in particular is recovering, which is reflected in an increase of 8.2 % in the arrival and 11.0 % in the overnight stays of guests from abroad.
"Darmstadt has a strong tourist radiance, shaped by science, culture, a wide range of leisure activities and a living city center," explains Mayor Hanno Benz. In particular, the world heritage of Mathildenhöhe, the reopened exhibition building, the ESOC and the wide range of cultural offerings attract numerous visitors.
Tourism growth exceeds expectations
The figures now published for 2024 refer to hotels, youth hostels, guest houses and boarding houses with at least ten guest beds. A total of 376,088 arrivals were registered, including 79,619 from abroad. The average length of stay rose to 2.1 days, and even 2.5 days for international guests.
Despite increasing number of guests, the bed load with 36.7 % over all companies and a room utilization of 56.0 % in hotels with more than 25 rooms below the pre-corona level. The reason for this is the greatly increased number of available beds - from 4,823 in 2019 to 5,845 in 2024.
City tours are enjoying growing popularity
In addition to the number of overnight stays, the bookings of city tours also show a positive trend: Almost 2,400 guided tours were carried out last year-an increase of 21 % compared to 2023. "These figures show that Darmstadt is becoming increasingly attractive as a travel destination," says Anja Herdel, Managing Director of Darmstadt Marketing GmbH.
Another step towards strengthening tourism is the participation of Darmstadt Marketing GmbH in the International Tourism Exchange (ITB) in Berlin (March 4-6). There Darmstadt will be represented both at the stand of Hesse Tourism and the Culture Lounge in order to network with the international cultural travel industry.
With the national image campaign "Da daunse you." Darmstadt continues to focus on targeted city marketing in order to assert itself as an attractive urban festination in competition and use synergies with the tourist destinations Frankfurtrheinmain and Bergstraße-Odenwald.
(Darmstadt - Red/Dam)
Tourism in Darmstadt. Photo: David Vasicek
