Dhe Titisee in March. It’s still quiet. Dark clouds hang in the sky, which occasionally bring a few snowflakes. The beach is deserted, an icy wind is blowing across the Black Forest. A couple of elderly ladies are walking their dogs. But the Seestraße, the Black Forest Copacabana, has been swept empty. And that at a time of year when things are usually already happening here, as the Indian seller in the souvenir shop opposite the “Seeblick” restaurant says. No Chinese, no Indians, even overseas travel groups are out of the question at the moment.
Barely 150 meters away, Olaf Drubba is sitting in his office. White desks, two screens. A small meeting table. Otherwise there is little decor. “The business has changed completely,” says the 61-year-old. Sales have fallen by more than 80 percent since the beginning of Corona. “And at the moment there is no telling when they will recover.” Together with his brothers Jürgen, Peter and Thomas, Drubba has created an art world on Lake Titisee: a small empire of hotels, restaurants, shops and boat rentals. The clientele is mainly Asian, especially Chinese. The simple and memorable slogan here is: “Stop, Lunch, Shop”.
25 minutes boat ride, lunch, shopping
It all began in 1956. Back then, Klaus and Ursula Drubba bought a kiosk by the lake. Boat rental was added later. At the beginning of the 1970s, when tourism on Titisee was picking up speed, the couple expanded the kiosk into a restaurant. Boat rental was spiced up with the Götz von Berlichingen tour boat and a replica of the 80-person Roman galley Titus. Later, the “Black Forest Clock Center”, the “Café and Brauhaus zur Mühle”, the boutique hotel “Alemannenhof” and the “Hotel Hofgut Sternen” in the nearby Ravenna Gorge were added. In 1996 the generation change took place. Today, the family also owns the jewelry store “Drubba Moments”, “Drubba Shopping” and the Chinese restaurant “Jade”.
Before Corona, numerous organizers brought guests from Asia to Lake Titisee in large coaches. The program: 25 minutes boat trip, lunch, shopping. “Products and brands from Europe are particularly important to the Chinese,” says Olaf Drubba. “They love European quality goods.” In the shops, his company offers everything that is good and expensive. The display cases contain IWC and Tissot watches, Victorinox knives, Samsonite and Rimowa suitcases. Elsewhere, cuckoo clocks, Bollenhuts and Black Forest ham fill the displays.
A seller of cuckoo clocks on the embankment on Lake Titisee, popularly known as the “Gold Coast”, has completely catered to Asian customers
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Bild: picture-alliance / dpa
But the business is no longer working. The declines are dramatic. Only a few customers stray into the jewelry store, “Drubba Shopping” is currently only open on Saturdays and Sundays due to a lack of customers. A few guests are sitting in the “Café und Brauhaus zur Mühle” just a few meters away. They are exclusively German, because China has sealed itself off from the pandemic. “The Chinese government’s zero-Covid strategy and the quarantine lasting several weeks when returning home make it almost impossible for the Chinese to travel,” says Drubba.
Before Corona, they had 250 to 280 employees, 20 of them from Asia, depending on the season. Today there are still 150. Thanks to short-time work benefits, nobody has had to be laid off so far. “But many employees left themselves and looked for other jobs.” The “Jade”, just 30 meters from the lake shore, is also deserted. Chinese cooks and waiters were employed here. Now the decor is peeling off the panes, the chairs are on the tables. Only a dusty ceramic figure of the Chinese deity Lu, the god of prosperity, adorns the window. Will the restaurant ever open again? Drubba doesn’t know. “That depends on whether business from Asia recovers.”
The Chinese spent more than 5.6 billion euros in Germany in 2019
But why are Asian tourists so fascinated by Lake Titisee? “They love the clear water and the fresh air here, as well as the food,” says Olaf Drubba. And the shopping. “Branded articles from Germany and Europe are significantly cheaper here than in China thanks to the VAT refund.”
It has become lonely around Lu-Stern, the god of prosperity, in the Chinese restaurant “Jade” on Lake Titisee.
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Image: Fabian von Poser
Breakfast in Paris, dinner at Lake Titisee. The next day Neuschwanstein, then Munich. The Chinese are considered fast travelers, and they hardly stayed longer than three hours at Lake Titisee. Nevertheless, China had developed into an enormous economic factor for German tourism. Until the beginning of the pandemic, the number of Chinese guests in Germany grew steadily. It tripled between 2010 and 2019. While around 500,000 Chinese visited Germany in 2010, there were 1.5 million in the year before the pandemic. In 2019, Germany was the most popular destination for Chinese travelers in Europe, ahead of France, Italy, Switzerland and Spain. This year the Chinese spent more than 5.6 billion euros in Germany. “This reflects the economic importance for retail and the tourism and leisure industry in Germany,” says Petra Hedorfer, Chairwoman of the German National Tourist Board (DZT). “The Chinese generated around eight percent of the total turnover in German incoming tourism.” Experts do not expect this level to return until 2025 at the earliest.
The sun is now coming out at Lake Titisee, the waves are sparkling in the afternoon light. A touch of spring is in the air. The weather at the lake is still changeable, but Olaf Drubba remains optimistic. International tourism will recover again, that is the finding from many discussions in the past few weeks and months. The moment the quarantine for travelers returning to China is lifted, things could happen quickly. But he doesn’t expect the volume from before the crisis either. “Because too many things have changed for that.”