Braunlage is hit by the crisis: Restaurant drastically reduces offerings!

Braunlage is hit by the crisis: Restaurant drastically reduces offerings!

In the heart of the picturesque Harz, more precisely in the “Memory Hotel and Restaurant” in Braunlage, an important step was taken. From now on, for business reasons, the company's evening restaurant will only be offered to in-house guests as a self-service restaurant and breakfast restaurant. The popular à la carte menu and full-service half board are no longer available, and all other buffets for the current year have also been canceled. Only the public restaurant remains open for breakfast buffets, a bar and special events. The latter can be visited on Fridays, Saturdays and many public holidays, where a small snack menu is offered. The team fervently hopes for better times for the catering industry, while the guests were both sad and understanding, as news38.de reports.

But this step is not isolated. The Harz, once a popular holiday destination, is facing noticeable challenges. The number of visitors in tourism is on a downward trend. In 2023, over 3.8 million overnight stays were counted in Lower Saxony, which corresponds to a decrease of 800,000 overnight stays compared to the year 2000. Many hotels and restaurants remain closed, and even the pedestrian zones in the popular holiday resorts appear increasingly deserted. Places like Braunlage and St. Andreasberg appear outdated - a problem that is not only recognized locally. Less snow due to climate change has had a particularly severe impact on winter sports. In addition, storms, drought and bark beetles cause serious damage to the spruce forest in the Harz Mountains. Since 2018, the national park has lost more than 11,600 hectares of forest, which has severely affected the hiking experience, as landundforst.de describes in detail.

Tourism in the Harz

The statistics are alarming: the region has invested little in modern infrastructure in recent years, while other holiday regions are boasting new concepts for sustainable mobility, digitalization and family-friendly offers. There has been little progress in the Harz region. The tourist landscape is partly characterized by nature and partly by a lack of innovation. This is reflected not only in the declining number of overnight stays, but also in the turnover of the hospitality industry.

The overnight stays in Lower Saxony show the following picture for 2023:

In view of these developments, it remains to be seen whether and how the respective infrastructure in the Harz will adapt to the needs of visitors. The demands on holiday regions are increasing, and the Harz must develop further promptly in order to remain trendy.