Day 2 at ITB

It was another busy day for me at the ITB, when I had to run a lot, discovering many interesting Pavilions. I dedicated today to the European side, with some Latin American flavors. I will keep the Asia for tomorrow, with some drops of Central America. 

An excellent design of the Hungarians, with many offers and nice people.

The famous Cransmontana is ready to seduce the German public - not only the VIPs

Live painting at the Polish Pavilion

Live music at the lively and colourful Indian Pavilion

Wine bottles growing on the shelves

Who does not need Spain, after all?

A welcoming Iraqi corner

In a break of law-and-order

Arts-in-process at the Turkish Pavilion

Ukrainian popular artists

The Latin American section is the best looking and interesting by now. I have not been in the Asian section yet...

The Cold War is over and dead for ever. Otherwise you would not have seen such a neighborhood.

An example of how the famous Panama is made

The colours of lively Mexico

Berlin Brands

Berlin is poor and tourism is its main source of revenue. No wonder that a big Hall at the ITB was dedicated to the wonder city of Central Europe. There are a lot of reasons to love the city and many other reasons to can't wait to leave it. However, there it is a high concentration of bright mind and wonderful expats ready to use their energies to live here, even underemployed and underpaid. Their ideas help to build up the city and attract more and more talented brains from all over the world and Germany.

I loved the Pavilion of Berlin because it looks as Berlin: dynamic, cool, with many ideas and projects, that even if not achieved - think about the Airport - no one will get angry on him for that. The main companies, shops - Kaufhof Alexanderplatz among them - and cultural institutions were represented, with possibilities to book tickets on the spot. 

Dreaming hard about the airport

This look like Berlin on a busy summer day

The room of peace

With so many nations and ethnic groups and religions, it makes sense such a room of silence, that is situated very close to the Media Center. It is a clean space and when I visited it, yesterday, around 12 pm, it was no one there, only some candles burning in a corner. 

It has a special place for the Muslim prayer, with an arrow indicating the direction to Mecca and a small prayer carpet. 

Short orientation guide at the ITB Berlin

The International Tourism Fair is considered the biggest tourism events in the world. It takes place from 6 to 10 March, but only the last 2 days are officially open to the public, the majority of the time being dedicated to discussions and networking between tour operators and other stakeholders from the industry. 

This year, 10,000 exhibitors from over 180 lands are getting ready to present their offer, apps, and interesting classes. The overall area occupied by the exhibition is of 160,000sqm. 

The official app of the fair is offered by GIATA and TOURIAS, and it will be very useful for the busy visitor in the week-end. 

Till I will go to pay a visit myself, a couple of words about the map of the fair. As there are many tourist agencies represented, many will offer significant discounts to the trips booked on the place.

In Halle 2.2, there will be a presentation of the Lisboa Story Centre, an interactive project aimed to help the visitor go through the history and present of the Portuguese capital city. Halle 2.1 is dedicated to the LGBT sector - Pink Pavilion, an area that according to officials present at the press conference yesterday is developing permanently. There could be find out more about the OUT NYC, the trend resort in NY opened in 2012 as an island of restaurants, bars and other lifestyle temptations. 

Halle 3.1 is dedicated to South-America with special attention dedicated to Costa Rica, Nicaragua and Panama. In Halle 3.2, you can visit Albania, Armenia, Bulgaria, Azerbaijan, Turkey and Georgia. In Halle 4.2, Irak - who has a bigger pavilion compared with the previous year - is neighbouring Spain and various tourist companies. In Halle 1.2. you can see not only the ITB Kino, but also Malta - where I am invited tomorrow - Montenegro, Moldova, Kosovo, Croatia, Italy and Bosnia-Herzegovina. Halle 23 is hosting Egypt - who registered a 17% decrease of tourists following the 'revolution', Bahrain, Israel, Jordan and Lebanon. 

Halle 4.1b will be dedicated to the challenges of responsible tourism, including Corporate Social Responsibility and many discussions will take place in the next days about the ways in which tourism can contribute to the sustainability of the local communities. Another interesting things to see at Halle 4.1: economy accommodation, youth travel, adventure tourism.

Those interested about the German Laender, can have a look at what is offered and displayed at Halle 6.2. Many of the natural treasures of Germany will be presented at large. In Halle 8.2 Germany will be presented again with an offer to discover Saarland, on bike. Other places where one can find out more about the offer of German tourism are: Halle 11.2 for Sachsen, Thueringen, Sachsen-Anhalt; Halle 12 for Berlin and Brandenburg, and Halle 13, 14.1 - for hotels. 

Halle 20 and 21 are dedicated to Africa, with South Sudan the newest guest. Libya and Yemen - a country where many Germans are visiting, despite the complicated security situation - are back in the business after a year of break.  

Halle 10.2 - that I will visit in a couple of hours - is hosting the Culture Lounge, where the visitor can find out about the cultural capitals of Europe, but also about the cultural offer of the world cities. Worth to mention and to find out more about: Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, Art and Design Museum Basel, the opening of the first world ABBA Museum in Stockholm. 

In Halle 20, the visitor can see the art of South Africa, and in Halle 26, China will show its different faces, with many cultural happenings offered to the public during the week-end. 

Indonesia, the official partner of the ITB, whose pavilion will be officially inaugurated today, promise to keep the visitors entertained and tempted to book the first flight to Jakarta. The Pavilion will have the shape of an old boat, traditionally used by fishermen.

The tickets can be purchased from the BVG kiosks at a better price - 12 Euro - than if bought from the fair. This purchase can be made till the 8th of March. The tickets can also be booked online. Between 2 and 4pm, on Sunday, there it is a special price of 8 Euro. Each ticket is qualified to enter a Tombola for a trip around the world. ITB will be open to the public from 10am to 6pm, Saturday and Sunday.

ITB Berlin, here I am!

I celebrate my 4-year anniversary since moving to the city of Berlin, with a little treat: this week I will be busy covering the most interesting news from the Tourism Fair. This is part of my larger professional project to dedicate more time to travel and travel writing in general. The good news, besides the lot of work that I will have to deal with in the next 5 days, is that I will be more than a crazy visitor running to gather leaflets: I am covering the seminaries, press conferences and news from the world of tourism as a journalist.Was so proud to wave my accreditation around!

Today was the day of the official press conference, and a lot of work of preparations of the pavilions. There were a couple of media events, among others an excellent presentation of the Hungarian Tourism Board, that I will extensively present on my dedicated travel blog: http://ilanaontheroad.wordpress.com. Tomorrow, will run to cover some nice events that most likely will be presented also on the wordpress blog.

Working hard to finish the work

For now, a couple of snapshots of the day, in a simpler way, just to be sure that my readers will return when my posts will be more developed.

- The word of the day was: 'sun', as everyone was surprised that after so many days and months of darkness, some wonders are still possible, also in Berlin.

- The site of the fair is still in construction and moving from a part to another is difficult, if not dangerous, as there are many trucks and hard work in process. Today, everything was fully experimental, with a lot of work and rock music to keep the right pace.

A short break of the Indonesian representatives

- The accreditation of bloggers was possible only online. The print and video media can do it still on the spot. Maybe there were not too many journalists yet, but everything was extremely fast. The media center is clean, with many facilities - wifi, computers, cloakroom, various publications and updates to be delivered soon. The transportation from the media center to the location of the press conferences is made with a special media shuttle bus, operating almost every 10 minutes. 

- Everyone is nice, talking English and ready to help the journalists. Quite a normal attitude, isn't it?

- The special guest this year is Indonesia. The video clip outlines the wonders that the visitor can encounter in such a diverse country that does not mean only 'Bali'. Personally, I was not impressed by the clip and found it quite common for many Asian countries. However, the minister for Tourism and Creativity, Dr. Mari Elka Pangestu, was very spontaneous and created the impression of hospitality and friendliness. More about Indonesia, later, when I will see the Pavilion and, eventually, I will benefit of the feet massage promised to the exhausted visitors. Politically speaking, there may be a new stage in the relations between Germany and Indonesia, a high level delegation visiting Berlin those days. 

Keep in touch!!

Visit My Cottage

Busy to cover some blog assignments at the beginning of this month, I stumbled upon My Cottage. I was in a hurry at the time but returned after I finished the interview for having a look inside and eventually talking with the people in charge.

My first impression: awesome! A very nice and pleasant girl offered me a lot of information about the orders of cookies - one week in advance is more than reasonable for a complicated offer, two days for the simple ones. Most of the products distributed are homemade - the collection of 'senf' was at least inspired - and the cookies look more than delicious. The prices are also acceptable and the ambiance inside is very inviting: I did not check if wifi is available, but if you don't necessarily need to check your e-mails every 3 hours and you are around, you can have a very pleasant break reading one of the newspapers brought daily. 

It may be situated not very central, but it is worth the effort to walk a bit as you may want to stay there for a couple of hours of quietness. And, once again, congratulations for the nice and welcoming customer service!

Good morning from the ATM

Sunday, 10 o'clock in the morning, the Volksbank ATM station from Wilmersdorferstrasse. A quiet snowy day when you need some cash and it is not late enough or early enough to avoid entering such a place with treasures. Plus, it is the safe Wilmersdorferstrasse where nothing serious could happen - except some month ago, to use the very open public space near the station as a ladies restroom...

Anyway, I entered the small ATM station and a strong smell cut my apetite for the next 4 hours. On the left corner, a mass of black blankets moved and a talking head wished me 'Good morning'. Apparently, my life is harder than a homeless' as I was up from 6 o'clok in the morning. I was not necessarily surprised, as I was told many stories about the secret life of ATMs in Berlin, I must confess that I did not enjoyed the smell and the idea of checking my account while someone else sleeping somewhere. Not the idea of using the space as a bedroom was bothering me, as I could understand the problems of homeless people in Berlin, but the idea of operating with money, as a woman, in a space where it was only me and the man in the sleeping bag. 

I decided to take the risk anyway and continue with the financial operations and once finished I jumped as far as possible. I needed more than anything else a fresh air. 

Such a situation is completely typical for Berlin, I think. In my travels I haven't seen so much leniency when it comes to guarding and protecting spaces where money and values are operated. A couple of days ago I friend told me about a hold-up in a hotel situated in a very central area. Someone pointed out a gun took the money and left. Most banks and hotels do not have guards of personnel that may deter the evildoers to plan their actions. I did not read or hear about significant attacks and in most cases the spaces of the ATMs are used as bedrooms and/or public restrooms (if you don't really need to get some cash, you better use the online versions or avoid as much as possible those places till the Monday morning cleaning is done). Why? Because it is a matter of money, but also because many do not really care about a high protection for values. Whose the richest one in a very poor city?