Tourism rides on car history
STUTTGART, 29 August 2011 – Germany is celebrating this year the birth of the automobile, with a patent applied for by Carl Benz 125 years ago for a motorised tricycle, in hopes of drawing tourists smitten by cars.
The national tourism office has made the auto industry a highlight of its annual programme for the first time and the southwestern region of Baden-Wuerttemburg alone has organised 200 events from May through September.
Anyone travelling to the regional capital Stuttgart will not miss the Mercedes star that sits above the main train station or the posters that advertise the local auto museum. Read more
Germany gains tourism crown
March 21, 2011 by Imtiaz Muqbil
Filed under Blogs, Imtiaz Muqbil
BERLIN 21 March 2011 – Germany, one of the world’s largest outbound travel markets, is on its way to becoming one of world’s top inbound travel destinations. The country crossed 60 million overnight stays in 2010 and is targeting 80 million by 2020, with arrivals from China and India expected to figure highly.
Speaking at the ITB Berlin, German National Tourist Board Chief Executive Officer, Petra Hedorfer said: “Germany has the potential to stake out a permanent place for itself as one of the world’s most popular tourist destinations.”
She added, “We believe that growth of between 2 and 4 % is entirely realistic for inbound tourism, and the domestic market is also expected to grow by up to 2%.”
German tax under fire
December 20, 2010 by Paphada Apimonton
Filed under News
BANGKOK, 20 December 2010 – World Travel and Tourism Council has warned Germany that a new air passenger tax could injure the country’s outbound tourism industry negating any benefits the tax might deliver, the organisation stated Sunday.
The new air passenger tax will be apply for all airline departures from Germany, 1 January 2011. Air Berlin and Ryanair have both indicated they will cut capacity and services from the country next summer. The tax aims to raise EU1 billion annually. The taxes are EU8, EU25 and EU45 for short-haul, mid-range and long-haul trips.
Germany criticises Al-Qaeda travel warnings
BERLIN, 7 October 2010 – Germany’s interior minister hit out Wednesday at travel warnings for visitors to Europe issued because of the risk of Al-Qaeda attacks, saying such tactics helped “terrorists” spread fear.
“We are taking things seriously. But public accompanying music is also something that terrorists use, because they want to spread fear,” Thomas de Maiziere told radio station Deutschlandfunk.
“We are working without talking a lot.”
Berlin on a tourism roll
November 24, 2009 by Duangrudee Somboonruangsri
Filed under News
Berlin saw a positive growth in tourism during the first nine months of the year with a 4% increase in visitor arrivals and a 5.2% increase in overnight stays.
The German capital drew a record of 6,110,551 visitors (+4%) and 14,123,277 room nights (+5.2%) during the first three quarters. There were 146,886 visitors from Asia mostly Japanese with 32,192 arrivals, a decrease of 15.4% but Chinese market including Hong Kong are strongly increasing with 25,206 arrivals, up 21.1%, followed by Israel with 36,455 arrivals, up 14%. Other Asian markets mostly saw negative figures.
Berlin celebrates fall of the wall
October 27, 2009 by Imtiaz Muqbil
Filed under News
Berlin will be using next month’s 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall to launch its first TV advertising campaign in Asia, based on a powerful brand message, “City of Freedom.”
At the same time, Lufthansa German Airlines will mark the 50th anniversary of its flights to Bangkok. In November 1959, a four-engine Super Constellation aircraft took 38 hours to fly from Hamburg to Bangkok, the airline’s first city in Asia, via Dusseldorf, Frankfurt, Rome, Cairo, Karachi and Calcutta (now Kolkata).
