Millions of smiles, tons of good hope and light-hearted optimism heaves the world’s most fascinating industry back into place. Berlin’s travel fair ITB is the largest of its kind in the world.
Here’s our ITB twitter, names and hotel news as they were overheard in Berlin these days.

Berlin, March 2010

Brief facts:
Most visited nations world-wide:
1. France 73 million tourists

2. USA 55

3. Spain 52

China, Italy, GB, Turkey, Germany, Austria, Mexico.
In 2009, 880 m people travelled.

1. Europe 52% of all arrivals

2. Asia Pacific 21%

3. Both Americas 16%
Germany itself is the largest spender in international tourism, with 58.1 million travellers per year. 


Travel-Tweets:

Savoy Westend in Karlovy Vary is fully refrubished. The 1897 hotel sets new standards in the Czech republic’s most famous spa resort.

Poor city of Berlin - there is no hotel of historical importance left. The two Select Member Hotels of The Most Famous Hotels in the World are the Adlon (1907), which was in fact destroyed during the war and rebuilt (1997), and the Bristol, which dates back only to 1952. The small 1932-hotel Askanischer Hof (Kurfuerstendamm) is the closest to “good-old-Berlin” feeling you can get.
Thomas Kleber, GM of one of Europe’s most expensive and exclusive hotels, Hotel Palais Coburg, Vienna, is also in charge of one of the SELECT MEMBER HOTELS of THE MOST FAMOUS HOTELS IN THE WORLD: Parkhotel Vitznau in Switzerland. The reconstruction is on track while we are researching its history. Reopening is scheduled for 2012. So is our book about it.
Horst Dieter Ebert: one of the most famous travel writers of Germany is to be rewarded for his train-travels-book Traumreisen mit der Eisenbahn.
Met at the Adlon’s restaurant on Tuesday night: Henning Reichel, general manager of Falkenstein Grand and Villa Rothschild (both Kempinski, Frankfurt) has built a new lobby at Falkenstein Grand.
SOFITEL
presents itself as ‘design brand’. Only the best can be associated with Sofitel’s top brands: Jean Novel, Kenzo Takada, ...
COO Sofitel - Robert Gaymer-Jones explains the rules:
‘We will never appear arrogant.
We offer approachable luxury.
We are the only company to reduce the total number of hotels to eliminate those who do not fit!’
New catch-phrases: “Salon de bien”. “Mybed”, etc.
ShangriLa: opens Vienna and Paris in 2010, London in 2012.
Kempinski: J. van Daalen is back from Moscow and now runs the Adlon in Berlin, as he did when it reopened.
Stafford London (105 rooms) is a Kempinski since 1. Feb. 2010, GM is Stuart Procter - we will investigate into the hotel’s history (according to him it started in 1935).
Gerold J. Held (Taschenberg Palais Dresden) enjoys high occupancy because of the new exhibition ‘Turkish Chamber’ next door, a permanent installation of Turkish treasures. His Taschenberg Palais hotel was best hotel of Northern Europe (north of Italy) by Conde Nast Traveller - and the 16th best in the world (November 2009).
GHA - global hotel alliance - launched a new level of their guest recognition programme last night in co-operation with one of its foundign mebers, Kempinski. Now you are awarded ‘local experience awards’. You can - for example - enjoy a photo shooting on top of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, or, while on a business trip in Mumbay, become part of the cast of a Bollywood movie.
Atef Goubran, RD of Sales and Marketing Oberoi Egypt, proudly presents the new pool at the Mena House, Cairo, and a wonderfully landscaped new garden.
Robert Jan Woltering, GM of The Grand in Amsterdam, is looking forward for his hotel to becoming a Sofitel Legend Hotel in September. We will keep you posted! (they have produced a splendid cookbook!)
The Grand Hotel “Glacier du Rhone” is not A SELECT MEMBER OF THE MOST FAMOUS HOTELS IN THE WORLD, but a member of Club Grand Hôtel  Palace, Switzerland. Its president H.-Ueli Gubser says: ‘The Glacier du Rhone is exemplary - it is famous despite the fact that it still has rooms without running water.”
BTW.: the Club Grand Hôtel & Palace has just over 100 members - it got started when the Swiss Grand Hotel Saas Fee was about to drop the “Grand” in its name. Gubser protested and the hotel compromised. Now it is called “Metropole - Grand Hotel”.

Kurt Wachtveitl, the legendary The Mandarin Oriental Bangkok manager(who retired last year), showed up at the Mandarin stand.