Berlin is celebrating! The German capital is forecasting a record number of visitors in 2012, with 22.4 million overnight stays. This success, particularly with business travellers in the year of business tourism in Germany, will be reinforced by the opening of Berlin Brandenburg airport on 3 June. Lufthansa alone will link this new hub to some fifty European cities. Berlin Brandenburg airport will also be connected to the city centre by a fast rail link, which was lacking at Berlin Tegel airport, and thus to a city that attracts more than 8 million visitors a year with its 100,000 events.
Berlin boasts first-class facilities, such as the Messe Berlin exhibition centre, which is linked to the ICC, Europe's largest congress centre. Every year, this complex plays host to the ITB, a trade fair for the tourism industry that attracted 113,000 visitors last March, including 40% from abroad. Now a little cramped in its 26 halls housing more than 10,000 exhibitors, the ITB will be able to count on the opening of an additional exhibition hall for its 2014 edition. In the meantime, exhibitors are multiplying the number of multi-storey stands, which provide excellent conditions for receiving customers. After all, everyone comes here to do business, with more than €6 billion worth of contracts signed in 2012.
