Sunshine Matters

This past week, March 9-13, I was in Germany for the 45th edition of ITB Berlin, the world’s leading travel trade show.  With very strong industry support, VISIT FLORIDA coordinated the largest stand within the USA pavilion with 80 Florida industry partners in attendance.  Surprisingly, when we arrived we discovered that spring had sprung with Berlin experiencing mild temperatures and blue skies.  So, if weather is any indicator, we should expect a sunny future for international tourism arrivals in 2011, keeping with the trend we experienced in 2010.

We released Florida’s 2010 overseas visitation numbers to the German press during our annual media reception attended by over 100 journalists on March 9.  I am pleased to share that we saw a 15 percent increase in total overseas visitors to Florida compared to 2009.  Germany experienced a 9 percent increase in visitation to the Sunshine State.

ITB Berlin hosted 11,163 exhibiting companies and organizations from 188 countries with exhibition space covering more than 1.7 million square feet in 26 halls.  Preliminary numbers indicate that over 169,000 visitors attended the show this year, including 110,000 trade visitors.  Even with warmer temperatures than normal and a rail strike, over 60,000 consumers attended over the weekend.  The feeling in the Florida stand was upbeat with strong foot traffic during the five-day show.

This grand showcase also provided VISIT FLORIDA with an excellent platform to launch its new German VISIT FLORIDA Facebook fan page and blog to our industry partners, travel trade and consumers.  Wiebke Flegel, our public relations account executive in Germany, will be the face of our German Facebook page and our German Insider. Wiebke will be posting interesting facts and photos and encouraging dialogue with potential German travellers.  We encourage you to support the page by sharing news, videos, photos and insider tips relative to the German market. Check out our posts from ITB and become a Facebook fan at facebook.com/VISITFLORIDA.DE.  To view VISIT FLORIDA’s German webpage and follow Wiebke’s Insider posts, go to VISITFLORIDA.com/deutsch.

If you have questions about our German programming or any other international initiatives, please contact me at tvaughan@VISITFLORIDA.org.