Our industry celebrates diversity – but demands consistent quality.

PEOPLE
At the turn of the year 2009/2010, the long-standing managing
director of the Stadthalle Braunschweig Betriebsgesellschaft
mbH, Uwe Birker, went into retirement. Stephan
Lemke,(picture) who has been with the center operating
company for ten years, will succeed him. The civic center
had been opened in 1965, and Birker took over position as
managing director on January 1, 1983. In the course of his
27-year-tenure in Brunswick, the facilities he managed hosted
over 30,000 events with more than 12 million visitors. In
the mid-1990s and in 2007/2008, he initiated two comprehensive
modernization and restructuring projects in the
civic hall costing a total of EUR 14 million. The Braunschweiger
Stadthalle ranks among the leading venues in
Germany in terms of cost-efficiency and utilization rates.
Nadine Reede (32) was appointed head of Marketing Inland
of the Deutsche Zentrale für Tourismus DZT (German
national tourist board) as of January 1 of this year. She thus
succeeds Christiane Otter in this position. Nadine Reede
had previously been second-in-command of that same department.
The business administration graduate with her
major in tourism has been with the DZT since 2004. "We’re
very happy that we were able to win this experienced expert
for the important market segment of supraregional inland
marketing, and we are confident that she will carry on the
good work with her own signature style", said Petra Hedorfer,
chairwoman of the DZT board. The consistent development
of inland tourism proved to be a solid basis for
Germany tourism in particular in the difficult year 2009. This
was also significantly influenced by the DZT’s intensive
marketing activities. Since 1999, DZT in addition to foreign
market activities has also been engaged in domestic promotion
drives for travels and holidays in Germany. The tourist
board was given this assignment by the conference of the
ministers of economics of the 16 German federal states; it is
in effect through 2011. DZT’s main partners in planning and
implementing supraregional inland marketing are the marketing
organizations of the German federal states,
Deutsche Bahn AG as well as the tour operators AMEROPA,
DERTOUR, ITS, Neckermann Reisen, and TUI.
Anja Woytal is the new Director Sales and Marketing at the
hotel nikko düsseldorf. 29-year-old Woytal had previously
already been employed with the Event hotel group, which is
also the parent company of the 4-star Superior hotel in
Düsseldorf. Prior to her transfer to Düsseldorf, she was
sales director for four Park Inn Hotels in the 3-and-4-star
category. At the Nikko, Woytal is in charge of all activities by
the seven-member sales team aimed at achieving sales
targets. This also includes measures for strategic customer
support and generating new business. In cooperation with
her colleagues Tetsuo Oyama, Director Marketing and Sales
for the Asian market and deputy hotel GM, she will coordinate
international marketing and positioning of the hotel
as business and convention venue. She succeeds Malin
Widmarc Folkeson and reports directly to hotel and regional
director Bertold Reul.
The corporate travel services company HRG is further reinforcing
its technology sector and has installed Bernward
Hohenbild (44), a qualified IT-specialist, as Director Business
Technology Germany. Hohenbild, who had previously
been with BCD Travel as Vice President Strategic Marketing
and Technology Planning, succeeds Andy Cruse in this position.
With this new appointment to division
management, HRG with its global partner
network in almost 120 countries is increasing
its efforts aimed at meeting rising requirements
in terms of providing technical
solutions in the corporate travel industry.
Jirí Kuliš (57) has been appointed to the helm of the Trade
Fairs Brno; he succeeds Jirí Škrla (60), who had retired in
September 2009. Jirí Kuliš studied economics at the university
of economics on Prague with his major in foreign
trade. Between 1976 and 1992, he held a number of executive
positions at the Brno expo company. From 1992
through 2005, he acted as head of the diplomatic mission of
the Czech Republic in New Zealand, after which he was
promoted to trade commissioner for Australia and New
Zealand, and later to trade and business commissioner of
the Czech Republic in Japan and the US. From 2006, he was
external advisor to the BVV management for internationalization.
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