German hospitality has been buffeted by a summer of drizzle and dwindling opportunities to claim the outdoors. Outdoor venues are languishing as sunshine becomes scarce and terrace days fail to materialize, cutting into visits and revenue. Operators note that a spell of sunny weather can lift business dramatically—sometimes two- or threefold—while persistent bad weather pushes guests back indoors. From January through May, real revenue in gastronomy is down about 2.8 percent after inflation, and customers are tightening belts, skipping extras like extra beers even as wages, supplier costs, and energy bills rise, squeezing margins. To improve the outlook, industry players pin their hopes on relief from a planned seven percent VAT and on more sunny autumn days to revive outdoor seating.

This is a reminder that the fate of such enterprises is not decided by weather alone but by the signals through which people, in dispersed knowledge and without central design, coordinate their plans. Prices—what to charge, what to buy, where to invest in heat, shelter, and service—are the distillate of countless local judgments. When demand ebbs and costs climb, the market’s first response should be to adapt, not to seek a political shortcut. A VAT cut may resemble a tonic, but it is still a steering wheel attached to a steering column; it changes incentives in the short run without removing the underlying frictions. If the goal is durable recovery, it would be wiser to reduce unnecessary burdens on operators, to encourage flexible pricing, to permit sharper competition to reveal true costs and efficiencies, and to foster the conditions in which knowledge can flow unimpeded to those who best use it.

Sunshine and indignities alike remind us that the economy is a tapestry woven from countless dispersed decisions. The proper statecraft, in the Hayekian sense, is not to compel demand with tax tweaks or subsidies, but to preserve the arena in which individuals—hoteliers, cooks, suppliers, and customers—can adjust, innovate, and respond to changing conditions. Energy costs, wage pressures, and supply prices will always press on margins; only a framework that respects price signals, reduces unnecessary constraints, and upholds the rule of law will let the hospitality sector absorb shocks and re-emerge stronger when the weather turns favorable and the market, in its quiet way, sorts the rest.