Euro 2024: Foreign Tourists Will Add 0.1% Economic Output in Germany in the Second Quarter

The Euro 2024 is expected to bring Germany an additional billion euros from foreign football tourists. That corresponds to around 0.1% of economic output in the second quarter of the year, according to the latest ifo economic forecast, which will be published next week. “However, the effect will only be short-lived, meaning that service exports due to tourists returning home after the end of the Euro 2024 are likely to fall again in the third quarter and, on balance, remain the same,” says ifo researcher Gerome Wolf.

“At the beginning of the 2006 World Cup in Germany, arrivals and overnight stays by foreign guests rose respectively by 25%,” adds Wolf. “If we take that as a basis for the 2024 European Championship, we can expect more than an additional 600,000 foreign tourists and 1.5 million additional overnight stays during the Championship. That will probably be reflected in higher overnight rates and sales in the hospitality industry.” Overall, that will additionally stimulate growth by 1.3% of price-adjusted service exports in the current quarter compared to the first quarter of 2024.

“From a macroeconomic perspective, this type of major event tends to have a rather minor impact, with the exception of tourism. Although domestic consumers will also briefly spend more in the hospitality and food retail sectors during the Championship, they will reduce their spending elsewhere, so that private consumption as a whole will likely remain unaffected. That is at least what experience from the 2006 World Cup suggests,” says Timo Wollmershäuser, Head of Forecasts at ifo.