LOCAL CULTURE & SUSTAINABILITY IS GERMANY'S FOCUS

With a 214 pc rise in tourists from India, the German National Tourism Organisation is confident it will reach its pre-pandemic levels next year. During a roadshow in New Delhi, Romit Theophilus, Director, GNTO India, tells India Outbound, that Germany will showcase its diversity in local cultures and focus on sustainable travel to attract Indian travellers.

- Ranvir Nayar

What is the main objective of this roadshow?

So today we are live and in-person after two-and-a half years. We are sitting in front of you and presenting Germany again to talk about the facts and figures.

So that is our main objective at the moment. If I have to talk about figures, we have done almost 136,000 overnights already, roughly at 214 pc growth over last year. But we are not going to be happy with that figure in comparison, we want to go back to our 2019 figures. We are confident that by next year, we will be 100 pc of 2019 levels, which is above 950,000 overnight stays.

What is German local culture and which segment are you targetting?

The German local culture talks about everything local and authentic based in the region. One of the interesting facts about Germany is that, just like India, the cuisine changes, the dress changes, and even the dialect changes. So, this is something we want to highlight as we move forward, especially this year.

In terms of segments, it is actually for everybody, no matter where you go, whether you are doing city breaks, or going out of the city, local culture will come in everywhere.

What about leisure tourism?

 Leisure travelling is happening as well as we have seen in the last few months with family travel. We are going to see a lot more business travel happening as the year progresses. Also, we are going to see a lot more incentives happening in Germany as well. We are at about 50 pc business and 50 pc leisure.