NEWS 3 EDITORIAL Richard
NEWS 3 EDITORIAL Richard Barnes Editor-in-Chief, ITB Berlin News CONTENTS DAY 3 EDITION Friday 10 th March 2017 News.............................................. page 4 Trade Talk.....................................page 11 ITB Berlin Convention................. page 12 Exclusive Interview......................page 14 Travel Technology 4.0: Propelling Tourism Into the Future SPECIAL FEATURES Cultural Tourism.......................... page 15 Family Destinations ................... page 19 Gay & Lesbian Travel (LGBT)..... page 21 REGIONAL SPOTLIGHT The Americas ............................. page 22 SPOTLIGHT ON GERMAN REGION Berlin-Brandenburg.....................page 28 Where to Go in Berlin................. page 29 ITB BERLIN NEWS is a CLEVERDIS Publication. 65 av. 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During ITB Berlin: Press Center – Hall 6.3 – Room 403 • Tel: +49 (0)30 3038 81 209 • info@itb-berlin-news.com • www.itb-berlin-news.com • Publisher: Gérard Lefebvre • Managing Director: Jean-François Pieri • Publishing Director: Jean-Guy Bienfait • Project Manager: Bettina Badon • Editor-in-Chief: Richard Barnes • Editorial team: Stuart Braun, Luc Citrinot, Neil Cole • Marketing Manager: Monia Tazamoucht • Art Director: Hélène Beunat • Design & Page Setting: Guillaume Kaercher, Guillaume Vinrich • With the participation of: Bettina Badon, Nathalie Meissner >To contact them : first name.last name@itb-berlin-news.com • Cover: © Marriott International • Printing: Möller Druck und Verlag, Berlin, Germany Registration of Copyright March 2017 Information presented in this publication is purely indicative in order to illustrate subjects contained therein. 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The publishers and editorial staff decline all responsibility as to opinions formulated in this publication by those interviewed or cited therein. Their opinions are entirely their own, and are included with the understanding that they contain, to our knowledge, no malicious intent. The inclusion of all texts, photographs and other documents supplied by those included in this publication imply the acceptance by their authors of their free publication therein. Documents and photographs will not be returned. It should be understood that this publication contains forward-looking statements that involve risks, uncertainties and assumptions. All statements other than statements of historical fact are statements that could be deemed forward-looking statements. Risks, uncertainties and assumptions include assumptions relating to the timing of the recorded date. If any of these risks or uncertainties materialises or any of these assumptions proves incorrect, actual results could differ materially from the expectations outlined in these statements. Cleverdis assumes no obligation and does not intend to update these forward-looking statements during the period of publication. Photo Credits and Copyright: All Rights Reserved. This year’s ITB Berlin has three major axes of interest: security, the changing paradigm in luxury travel, and travel technology 4.0. The latter is more than just a catch-cry or a fad. Technology is in many ways the primary driver of the industry’s growth. In his keynote speech at the ITB Future Day on 8 March on the subject of “Technology vs. Humanity? Artificial intelligence and the prospects it offers for business, society and humankind”, Prof. Dr. Hans Uszkoreit, Scientific Director and Head of the Faculty of Language Technology at the German Research Centre for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI), explained the extent to which artificial intelligence will change business structures, social processes and our private lives. Meanwhile, the current capabilities of robots were demonstrated live on the stage on the same day by the robot Pepper, with Nicolas Boudot, EMEA Sales Director, SoftBank Robotics Europe, reporting about the many promising applications for service robots at destinations, and areas where they can be particularly effectively deployed. At the eTravel Lab Day, Tymon Wiedemair, co-founder and Chief Executive of Ulmon GmbH, explained how artificial intelligence can be used to personalise travel content on mobile devices. This has been made possible by the introduction on a mass scale of mobile technologies in recent years, as well as by the creation of powerful artificial intelligence systems that make use of localised data in order to supply travellers with personalised content. The development of IoT (Internet of Things) and AI (Artificial Intelligence) has an impact on every industry, including hotel industry. One of the examples cited by Andriew Lim of the HotelSchool at The Hague was that of the CityHub Amsterdam, an urban hotel that provides their guests with a wristband and a mobile app so that they can customise and make transactions during their stay. The forward march of booking technologies is also making a big impact at the show. Jet2holidays, for example, is moving forward from using only traditional static contracts, to bringing on-board new technologies to work dynamically with their suppliers. Then there’s Virtual Reality, building management systems, energy management, front of house, back of house, PoS, PoI, in-room entertainment systems, wayfinding, digital signage, digital menus, and integration of much of the above; it’s mind boggling. Take some time to visit a few of the tech exhibitors and if possible attend some of the extraordinary tech sessions at the ITB Berlin Convention. Indeed, while Artificial Intelligence is on the rise, extraordinary industry intelligence is the order of the day at ITB Berlin! ITB BERLIN NEWS • Friday 10 th March 2017
