From 13 to 15 May 2012, the German National Tourist Board (GNTB) is hosting the 38th GTM Germany Travel Mart™ together with Leipzig Tourismus und Marketing GmbH and Tourismus Marketing Gesellschaft Sachsen mbH. Other important GNTB partners are Deutsche Lufthansa AG and Deutsche Bahn AG. "The GTM is the biggest event of the year for Germany's inbound travel industry and is extremely important in terms of international marketing. This is where key accounts from all over the world can come together with German suppliers," explained Petra Hedorfer, Chief Executive Officer of the GNTB. For medium-sized tourism providers, this platform is a unique opportunity to establish contacts within the international travel industry and to promote their latest products and services. The GTM is going green for the first time this year and is also being supported by the GNTB with a host of social media activities. Another first at the 2012 GTM is the live social media newsroom featuring multimedia content on the @gtm2012 Twitter feed and on Storify. And in another premiere, the GTM press conference is being streamed live on the GNTB website at www.germany.travel/gtmlive.

'Vibrant, fashionable, innovative'. The German National Tourist Board (GNTB) plans to use a new broad-based social media campaign to promote Germany as a travel destination around the world, particularly among young travellers. The campaign will be launched at the ITB 2013 in Berlin and will continue throughout 2013 and 2014. The planned campaign will support the theme for 2013: 'Germany for young people – vibrant, fashionable, innovative' which caters to a tourism segment offering vast economic potential. The target group is also huge, with current figures showing that about a third of all international visitors to Germany are under the age of 39. "Young people visiting from abroad today are Destination Germany's future holidaymakers and business travellers. They are becoming an ever more important target group, especially as domestic tourism will be increasingly affected by demographic change," said Petra Hedorfer, Chief Executive Officer of the GNTB.

London, 09th May 2012 – Take one travel-hungry UK student, equip him with an iPad, and an eventful travel itinerary to Germany and set him forth with the task of creating a very personal diary of discovery.This was the task set by the German National Tourist Office (GNTO) to James Burns, aged twenty, a student at Newcastle University and the winner of the GNTO’s TravelMeister competition, which launched in November 2011 on Facebook. Throughout his trip, James, filed a daily account of his experiences through seven German towns and cities, on Facebook.

Frankfurt am Main, 4 May 2012 – A first for the GTM: for the entire duration of the 38th GTM Germany Travel Mart™, the German National Tourist Board (GNTB) is engaging in a range of social media activities. The content generated on the individual social media channels will paint a dynamic picture of events at the workshops and will be available online even after the GTM has finished. "This is part of our ongoing Web 2.0 strategy", says Petra Hedorfer, Chief Executive Officer of the GNTB. "As well as offering an authentic picture of what's going on at the trade fair, the multimedia content is also consolidating the impact of this year's Germany Travel Mart™ and extending its reach."

London, 02nd May 2012 – Chairman Nigel Rosser, vice Chairman Barry Norris and the members of The Caravan Writers’ Guild (CWG) - the UK’s only professional body of specialist writers for caravan and motorhome owners - are embarking on their first ever study trip to Germany.

London, 20th April 2012 – The German National Tourist Office (GNTO) has

appointed Victoria Kyme as the new PR Manager for the UK & Ireland with

immediate effect.

More UK tourists visited Germany in January than from any other European country, with just one exception, according to the latest statistics released by the German National Tourist Board. Only the Dutch – with the convenience of their adjoining borders – beat UK tourists when heading to Germany for their holidays.

Creative Germany is the slogan for a new, young and creative side to Germany as a travel destination. "Germany is traditionally known as the country of poets and philosophers", says Petra Hedorfer, Chief Executive Officer of the German National Tourist Board (GNTB). But even now, people in our country are still setting trends every day, coming up with innovative ideas and pushing the boundaries of art. The famous 'Made in Germany' label has evolved into a 'Created in Germany' brand. De facto brand ambassadors include popular contemporary painters such as Neo Rauch, Bernhard Heisig, Werner Tübke and Wolfgang Mattheurer, all exponents of the Leipzig School who have made a name for themselves around the world.

London, 22nd March 2012 – “Capital Connections – Gateway To New Horizons” was the motto of yesterday’s B2B event celebrating the forthcoming opening of Berlin’s new international Berlin-Brandenburg airport (BER). The new hub in the heart of Europe was a good reason for a get-together in one of London’s most popular landmarks – the Tower Bridge.

The travel destination Germany has yet again set a new record for 2011, generating over 60 million overnight stays by foreign visitors to Germany for the second successive year. This result represents an additional increase of 5.8 million for 2010 and an extra 3.5 million overnight stays for 2011, respectively a 10% and 5.7% increase year on year.