Horse tourism in Germany and the Münsterland in acute existential distress

Survey shows: running costs difficult to compensate for

MÜNSTERLAND/GERMANY. The corona crisis is hitting horse tourism businesses in Germany and also in Münsterland extremely hard. This is shown by a current, Germany-wide survey conducted by the Bundesarbeitsgemeinschaft Deutschland zu Pferd e.V. (DzP) in cooperation with dwif-Consulting GmbH, in which businesses from Münsterland also participated.

According to the survey, the average loss of turnover per month in the horse tourism businesses, each with just under eight full-time employees, amounts to more than 10,000 euros. In addition, there are many cancellations for the months of May and June (61 per cent) as well as July and August (29 per cent), and the trend is increasing every week. In particular, children's riding holidays, class trips, family and other group trips were often cancelled as early as 2021.

"We are particularly concerned about the fact that our farms cannot simply shut down machines like the industry," says DzP Chairwoman Gerlinde Hoffmann from Warendorf. The costs for feed, farrier and veterinarian for the horses, for example, continue unabated - many farms have 20 or more horses of their own, quite a few even far more than 50. "The state emergency aid is therefore all the more important, but it cannot come close to compensating for the high running costs," says Hoffmann.

Only 7 percent of the respondents are sure that they will survive the crisis well, another 19 percent hope so - usually because sales from other business areas, such as agriculture, can at least partially compensate for losses. 45 percent of the respondents from all over Germany have introduced short-time work, 8 percent are planning to do so; 14 percent had to lay off staff or do not hire additional employees for the season, as is usually the case.

Moreover, horse tourism is a seasonal business: "From Easter to the autumn holidays, money has to be earned for the winter. If this is lost, many businesses are in acute danger of insolvency by the end of the year at the latest," says Dr Mathias Feige, board member of the DzP and managing director of the dwif.

Michael Kösters, Head of Tourism at Münsterland e.V., also confirms this: "Münsterland is horse country and combined with the loss of income, especially during the Easter holidays, the situation for the horse farms is more than dicey. At the more than 150 pony farms in our region, countless children should be trying their first riding experience. The situation not only threatens the horse farms, but also the local economy. Because the small and large guests in the Münsterland are often also supplied with products from the Münsterland."

Sources of information and assistance for horse businesses have been compiled by Münsterland e.V. on the platform www.touristiker-muensterland.de.