War hangs heavy on Berlin’s Tourism Marketplace
The Berlin International Tourism Marketplace (ITB) –one of the major commercial events of the sector worldwide- will open next March 7 amid one of the worst crises the leisure industry has undergone in the last decades and blotched this time around by the threat of war in Iraq and the economic recession endured by industrialized nations.
ITB will stretch out until March 11 and is expected to draw together over 10,000 expositors from as many as 181 countries. Fair planners hope to lure some 60,000 experts from the five continents.
”There’s been a dramatic transformation in consumers’ habits as a result of the current economic situation in the world, and this is not a fleeting problem we’re talking about. Now travel is more influenced than never before by a matter of price,” said Michael Frenzel, president of TUI, the world’s leading tour operator headquartered in Hannover, northern Germany.
The ongoing crisis has driven this megabuck company not only to offer flights at very low prices, but also to put together cost-cutting travel packages and direct reservations for its own hotels in an effort to keep prices at bay and somehow draw in potential travelers –especially from eastern Europe- with fares that go virtually “for a song and a dance.”
Croatia, one of the cheapest destinations in Eastern Europe, will sponsor this year’s opening ceremony of the ITB Fair. Cuba opened last year’s marketplace with a huge cultural show that was really one for the books.
Latin America will be represented this time up by its 21 countries. Spain, the world’s number-two destination second to France- is also feeling the pinch of an economic slowdown. However, the Iberian nation is penciled in as shoo-in in the Western Mediterranean in case of a war outbreak in the Middle East.
For Germany, boasting one of Europe’s major tourist-sending markets, “the heart of the matter is not Iraqi president Saddam Hussein,” said Christian Boergen, chairman of the Deutsch Association of Travel Agencies and Tour Operators.
