This year our course had a chance to go to the ITB in Berlin, which is the World's Leading Travel Trade Show. Every country was there with a stand to sell themselves as a destination. Some exhibitors were huge taking up half a hall with multiple stands and businesses representing them (Greece), others were small (France what up?) and others were tiny (Liechtenstein). There were free regional wine/cheese/beer/snack/chocolate tastings, not to mention celebratory cake :) Besides all the country representatives, there were loads of other businesses related to tourism, either promoting their product(s) or finding potential clients or employees. Also, there were multiple lectures given on current issues in tourism. It took about half an hour to walk from one end of the exhibition halls to the other...
Highlights for the common person to go there were definitely the souvenirs you could get :D Free stuff is what dreams are made of, right? The best thing was the opportunity to get real on the spot printed out photos taken of you (Korea, Ecuador). And not to mention a card with your photo on, sitting on the seat of a Lufthansa plane, that looked like a proper staff-member ID :D
One day to visit is not enough, really, you miss so many things because at first you're just in awe of the massiveness of it. Another day, at least is needed to fully explore every corner of it and talk to all the people about their destinations etc :) I hope that I'll get to go back next year or the year after that on public visiting days, because this year we went on the days it was open to business etc people. So most of the stands had just tables where proper business meetings took place and I personally felt kind of out of place, especially as everyone kept asking for my business card :D. It would be interesting to see what they come up with when they have to attract a common Joe from the street to buy a holiday :) Already for business people there were various local entertainment, from dancing to massage, but I expect it to be even grandiose on public days :)
Just WOW is what I remember and the desire to go back :)
Ttyl ;)
Jazzz...
