SATURDAY 7 th MARCH 2015 DAY 4 ITB QUICKFINDER INSIDE NEWS ITB BERLIN CONVENTION TRADE TALK REGION: EUROPE Cyril Ranque Senior Vice President, Expedia Lodging Partner Services “Travellers want to be inspired, they want personalisation with options and offers tailored just for them.” Read page 8 Manfred Seebauer Chief Technical Advisor (CTA), ICIMOD “This area, along with other mountain regions, where tourists go for their holidays and relaxation, is where people live… people leading a rather harsh kind of life.” Read page 9 Magdalena Osmola ETOA Head of Marketing & Communications “We’re all about the inbound business, into Europe, and our members contribute 12bn Euro worth of business.” Read page 12 Gordana Plamenac CEO, National Tourism Organisation of Serbia “Lonely Planet and Conde Nast have rated Belgrade as one of the top 10 must see destinations in the world.” Read page 26 Hall 22A Stand 104 Hall 17 Stand 108 Travel, Culture and Tolerance ITBBerlin 2015 goes well beyond being the biggest travel and tourism trade show in the world This year, ITBBerlin has proven again to be not only a centre of exchanges and business, but increasingly also a melting pot, where more than 180 nations are aligned side-by-side in an annual “Olympics of Travel Tourism”. The Destination Marketing Organisations of each country, while being in a race for business, also increasingly work hand in hand with those of neighbouring nations in the knowledge that the development of regional tourism benefits one and all. And much as outlined by the UNWTO this year at ITBBerlin in its meetings on trans-national route development and community empowerment through creative industries and tourism, it becomes increasingly clear that tourism is no doubt the greatest weapon against exclusion, ignorance and xenophobia around the world. Pedro Ortún (pictured left) said it all when he stated, “The very essence of the concept of ‘people-to-people’ contacts is getting to know, understand, and ultimately respect each other.” See interview p.10 Pedro Ortún Director for Tourism, CSR, Consumer Goods and International Regulatory Agreements Directorate, DG Enterprise and Industry, European Commission DESTINATION SPOTLIGHT EUROPE Plitvice National Park, Croatia With +4% visitors in 2014, according to the UNWTO, Europe remained the world’s most visited region, with over half of the world’s international tourists. This equated to an increase of 22 million arrivals in 2014, reaching a total of 588 million. Thanks to these results, tourism has been a major contributor to the European economic recovery. Read our special section from page 23.
