International Tourism Exchange Berlin

Logo of the fair

The International Tourism Exchange ( ITB ) Berlin has been the leading trade fair for the global tourism industry since 1966. Countries, cities and regions, tour operators, booking portals and hotels as well as many other service providers from up to 180 countries present their offers at the ITB. It takes place annually in March at the Berlin ExpoCenter City exhibition center and is organized by Messe Berlin GmbH.

The 53rd edition took place in March 2019, the partner country was Malaysia . The 54th edition, planned from March 4 to 8, 2020, was canceled due to the coronavirus , the official partner country would have been Oman .

history

Area of the Messe Berlin with the radio tower, 2007

Exhibition stand at ITB 2017

Manfred Busche initiated the first event in 1966. This took place as part of an overseas import fair: Nine exhibitors from five countries - Egypt , Brazil , Federal Republic of Germany , Guinea and Iraq - presented their products on the exhibition grounds.

The sudden increase in the number of offers for vacationers and the rapidly increasing number of companies and organizations in the 1960s brought the “2. International Tourism Exchange “great success. With Romania and Hungary , two states of the Eastern bloc also presented themselves during the “ Cold War ” .

In 1974 the exhibition space already passed the 20,000 square meter mark. With a two-day congress in 1976 and the premiere of the TEF tourism expert forum in 1978, the ITB presented itself as a global trend barometer.

In the 1980s, ITB Berlin took up the much-discussed topic of “new media”. How much they changed the industry was shown by Galileo and Amadeus with their electronic distribution systems and the START reservation via BTX in 1988 at ITB Berlin.

Trends such as soft tourism or health tourism were picked up at the ITB Berlin in the 1990s. This also includes the segmentation of new offers for a wide variety of target groups, from business travelers to young people (youth travel centers) to health-conscious travelers.

In 1992, ITB Berlin addressed human rights in holiday destinations and put environmental protection on its agenda. Environmentally friendly and resource-saving offers were the focus and contributed to enforcing more environmental awareness on the tourism market.

Mobile Internet was already a topic of discussion at ITB Berlin in 2000. At the same time, the Travel Technology segment was created as a separate exhibition area. To this day, Travel Technology has proven to be one of the largest and most international exhibitor segments.

In 2004 the ITB Berlin Congress celebrated its premiere. In 2007 the longest-serving astronaut in the world at the time, Story Musgrave , spoke on the subject of space tourism, and a year later Bertrand Piccard, Chairman and Chief Pilot of Solar Impulse, spoke on the subject of “Solar energy as a propulsion system for aircraft”.

In 2010 ITB Berlin treated “ LGBT ” as a tourism segment. Today ITB Berlin presents the world's largest range of LGBT travel at a trade fair.

The ITB shows the largest range of travel technology worldwide at a travel fair and informs visitors about digital marketing, social media and mobile travel services. Lectures and workshops clarify relevant changes in the digital world.

Offer overview

The exhibitors at ITB Berlin come from all areas of the international business travel and tourism industry. National and regional tourism organizations, tourist offices, tour operators, travel agencies, carriers, hotels, travel insurance companies, car rental companies, suppliers to the tourism industry, communication and information systems, publishers and international tourism umbrella organizations are involved.

Visitors

The trade visitors come from all areas of the tourism value chain and are among others. a. Tour operators, travel agents, hotel managers, tourism organizations, journalists, travel managers, consultants, etc. More than 70 percent of private visitors come from Berlin-Brandenburg, the rest from neighboring federal states and Poland.

In 2016, the 50th ITB in Berlin counted 120,000 trade visitors and 60,000 private visitors more than ever before. They met 10,000 exhibitors from 187 countries. Business deals worth 7 billion euros were made.

Partner country

Klaus Wowereit (right) with Polish guests Lech Wałęsa and Adam Giersz at ITB 2011

A new partner country or partner region of ITB Berlin is chosen every year. The respective partner country presents itself to the visitors of ITB Berlin with a program of events such as the grand opening ceremony.

2004: Peru
2005: Germany
2006: Greece
2007: India
2008: Dominican Republic
2009: Ruhr region
2010: Turkey
2011: Poland
2012: Egypt
2013: Indonesia
2014: Mexico
2015: Mongolia
2016: Maldives
2017: Botswana
2018: Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania
2019: Malaysia
2020: Oman
2021: Saxony
2022: Georgia

In 2018, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania was the first German state to be an official partner country of the ITB.

criticism

When choosing the trade fair partner country for 2016, there was criticism of the trade fair management because of the human rights violations in the Maldives, ruled by a coup regime . Similar criticism came up in 2019 with regard to the partner country Malaysia , when the local tourism minister said on the criminal liability provisions for homosexuality that there would be no homosexual people in Malaysia.

ITB Congress

The ITB Berlin Congress has been taking place parallel to the trade fair since 2004. With over 23,000 participants, 400 speakers and podium guests from business and politics and more than 200 sessions over 4 days, this is the world's largest tourism congress and deals with topics from the tourism industry in seminars, symposia, workshops and press conferences. Participation is included in the trade fair ticket.

Awards

ITB Berlin Book Awards

The ITB Berlin Book Awards have been presented since 2002. Outstanding journalistic works and achievements in the field of tourism are awarded. The management of ITB Berlin is also awarding a special prize. The focus is on the DestinationsAwards, which are dedicated to a key travel destination.

Best Exhibitor Awards

The Best Exhibitor Award has been a quality indicator for an above-average trade fair appearance at ITB Berlin since 2000. On behalf of and in cooperation with Messe Berlin, students from the Cologne Business School (CBS) rated each of the over 10,000 exhibitors during the trade visitor days at the ITB. Until 2018, the festive award ceremony for the best exhibitors took place on the ITB Saturday in the Palais am Funkturm . In agreement with ITB management, it was decided to initially suspend the continuation from 2019 until a new concept was developed.

International

ITB Asia

Every year in October, the three-day ITB Asia trade fair including a congress takes place in Marina Bay Sands Singapore. More than 800 exhibitors from over 70 countries and a total of 9,650 participants from 110 countries take part in the conference fair.

ITB China

In May 2017, ITB China was the first subsidiary of ITB Berlin to be held in Shanghai . From now on it will take place every year in mid-May at the World Expo Exhibition & Convention Center in Shanghai

ITB India

ITB India will take place in Mumbai for the first time in April 2020 and, comparable to ITB China, is a trade fair for Indian travelers and therefore has a purely Indian proportion of trade visitors and buyers.