Dear Insider,

Forecasts and bare facts, that's how every year begins. But one thing is already changing from my perspective: The future of the industry is increasingly dependent on strategies and decisions over which hoteliers and investors have little or no influence. Taking the Netherlands and Great Britain as examples, we see today how the state is attempting to fill its empty coffers at the expense of tourism and the hotel industry. The Dutch government plans to increase VAT on overnight stays from 9% to 21% in 2026. The hoteliers will lose guests, employees and even investors, while the OTAs will gain. The UK government, on the other hand, will exert even more pressure: Britain is set to increase national insurance contributions from employers by 75%. This will hit part-time employees especially hard. Just two examples from a dangerous game with fire in two countries. Read it yourself!

For political decisions, entrepreneurs often have to take long-term risks. When things get tight, there is a risk of insolvency. Experts predict that insolvencies will increase drastically in Germany in 2025, particularly in the hospitality industry, but now also among the supposedly stable hotel groups. Insolvency under the debtor-in-possession rules may well be the last resort. What strategies will insolvency administrators use and how do they approach their job? To what extent do they take responsibility, for whom and what? We spoke to the Hanover-based law firm Anchor about this - chosen because it does not have any hospitality clients and is therefore unbiased in its response.

Although the third year of recession has begun in Germany and the German hotel investment market is only recovering slowly, real estate specialists still see potential. Demand is still high and insolvencies, among other things, are fuelling M&A activity. The smell of fire.

So let’s have a look into the crystal ball. A travel search engine has filtered out unusual trends from a survey: In the future, trips will be booked in the social media feed, controlled by a holographic concierge and end in spiritual adventures.

A new "Transition Lab" at this year's ITB Berlin Convention will address the virtual changes. And among the many personnel changes we collected around the turn of the year, there are many people who have to work with new tools. There will also be no shortage of new hotels: We counted 42 relevant news on newcomers of all kinds in our News Mix today - then we pulled the ripcord for the day.

From our public content: Frank Tetzel from Berlin commented on the tourism industry's wish list in his PolitikInside column. Dehoga and the think tank DZG name their main demands. Finally, new elections will be held on 23 February.

Paris is closing its last tourist office, the super-rich have already used up their CO2 budget for the whole year on the 10th day of the new year, reusable food service offenders may face legal action, and a traffic light system in company restaurants is intended to promote sustainability.

All hot topics for a hot year... See you next Friday!

Yours, Maria Pütz-Willems
Editor-in-Chief