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Travel industry experts who visited ITB Exhibition in Berlin (March 8-12th) pointed out more formal and business-oriented approach.
Firstly, it started on Wednesday unlike previous years when the exhibition started on Saturday. Secondly, first free days were targeted at travel market professionals, while on Saturday and Sunday the exhibition was opened for general public. Thirdly, the atmosphere itself invited to professional communication. Evhenia Konkol, General Director of Spectrum Travel Company, commented on the situation as follows: ‘the concept of the exhibition has completely changed. We liked to work there. Usually such events are overcrowded but ITB gave travel market players to communicate on professional level and to make presentations’.
On the other hand, ITB 2006 is behind the event of 2005 in terms of VIP-guests. Last year the official ceremony was opened by German Chancellor Gerhard Schreder. Besides many well-known travel market players visited the exhibition. In 2006 only burgomaster of Berlin, Klaus Voverait, attended the ITB opening ceremony. Besides, the issue that generates great interest behind the scenes is that Greece became the sponsor of the event as much attention was paid to the country, even the menu of banquet (the only informal part of the event) had many Greek cuisine dishes.
Furthermore, the Russian stand was more impressive with more companies, including regional companies. However, Rostourism and Moscow Tourism Committee could not combine again. ‘Despite everything was better organized, the problem remained the same – two separate stands. It was especially strange that Russian regions were presented at Moscow stand’, said Sergey Sinitsin, Press Secretary of federal Tourism Association.
It is interesting that, according to the majority of travel market experts, European exhibitions are loosing their actuality due to the popularity of information technologies in Europe. Meanwhile, such events are more important for such countries as Russia where technological communication is less developed.
