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Convincing demonstration of Berlin's enormous potential

18.07.2007

Tagungswirtschaft 04/07

Berlin once again presented itself as attractive and popular destination for conventions and
incentives. On invitation by the Berlin Convention Office (BCO), approximately 100 hosted buyers from June 14 thru 18 had the opportunity to familiarize themselves at the "Meeting Place Berlin" with the wide ränge of facilities and Services available from Berlin suppliers.

Berlin Tourismus Marketing GmbH (BTM) initiated the Meeting Place Berlin for the first time in 2005 in order to attract even more multi-day congresses to the city, and the innovative approach to sales promotion met with considerable response.
Meeting Place Berlin is designed as platform for decision-makers in the convention, congress, and incentives indus-try. In coopera-tion with BTM-Partnerhotels e.V. and BTM-
partneragenturen Berlin e.V., the BTM's Berlin Convention Office invited approximately 100 national and international Hosted Buyers - i.e. operators and organizers from associations, corporations and agencies - to convince themselves on-site of Berlin's enormous variety and profession-alism.
The international trade workshop Meeting Place Berlin has been staged a total of four times in the past three years - and the attractiveness of the metropolis on the Spree river and the abilities of local suppliers were demonstrated to more than 320 congress operators and organizers from 18 countries. The high density of modern and well-appointed business hotels impressed participants from all parts of the world; the number of available hotel beds has doubled to around 90,000 since 1990. They were also enthusiastic about the variety of unique locations and the enormous recreational value of Germany's capital city.

All these remarkable qualities have in the past years blessed the destination with an enormous upswing on the business-travel market. The German capital has established itself among the top locations in Europe when it comes to conventions, congresses and incentives.

In 2006 alone, the number of these events increased by seven percent to around 95,500 with a total attendance of 7.45 million persons. And Berlin presented itself again this year as attractive and popular destination for conventions, congresses, and incentives.

From June 14 thru 18, approximately 100 Hosted Buyers had been invited by the Berlin Convention Office (BCO) of Berlin Tourismus Marketing GmbH (BTM) to the 4th Meeting Place Berlin to convince themselves of the wide range of goods and services available from Berlin suppliers to the market and the high quality Standards they apply. The BCO cooperated with BTM-Partnerhotels e.V. and BTM Partneragenturen Berlin e.V. to compile an attractive program. Organizers had chosen the Tempodrom as venue for the two-day workshop,
a decision not readily hailed by all participants. Inadequate daylight Illumination and the venue's feeble air-conditioning System certainly didn't make things more comfortable for quite a few participants in view of the almost tropical temperatures prevailing in Berlin at that time.
44 exhibitors informed potential buyers from 18 countries (including Great Bri-tain, Belgium, the US, Italy, Sweden, France and Slovakia) about the capital city's convention and congress potential.
Europe's most modern hotel landscape presented itself to trade visitors along with numerous cultural institutions and event agencies. In addition to attending the trade workshop, guests had the opportunity to take fam-trips to convention and designer hotels, meeting locations and unique event venues. On special request, organizers this year staged more site inspections: the international experts spent an entire morning visiting the big Conference hotels in City West, the 5-star luxury hotels on Kurfürstendamm and Gendarmenmarkt or unique meeting and event facilities such as the Radialsystem culture center or the Ascension Church.
New hotels such as the Hotel de Rome am Bebelplatz or design hotels such as the Ku'damm 101 opened their doors for inspection trips. Hosted Buyers were given ample opportunity to pick up numerous ideas and suggestions for their Berlin programs at an exclusive Wintergarten Variete dinner gala, a networking evening Session at the Museum Hamburger Bahnhof, on Sightseeing tours by boat, a ride with the Velotaxi, on a "Trabbi Safari" and while playing golf. Guests had the opportunity to attend an exclusive organ concert at the Berliner Dom cathedral. And the hosting hotels scored massively with their culi-nary capabilities: one genuine highlight was a Walking Dinner in five 5-star hotels in the immediate vicinity to the Gendarmenmarkt.
And finally the proverbial cherry on top of the entire program: the traditional end-of-season concert given by the Berlin Philharmonics at the Waldbühne open-air stage really enthused participants.

Heike Mahmoud, Director Conventions of the Berlin Convention Office, was delighted to strike a positive balance: "We got lots and lots of positive feedback from our guests. We managed in three days to give them an idea of what Berlin has to offer and to demonstrate that the network in Berlin encompassing the hotel industry, PCOs, agencies and all other service-providers functions flawlessly. Those of our guests already familiar with Berlin confirmed that they got to know the city
from a totally different angle and in much greater detail. And those traveling to Berlin for the first time were just simply enthralled. They admitted that they hadn't had the slightest idea about what the city has to offer."

The "Berlin Preferred Agencies" alliance founded in 2002 is actually just as unique as is Meeting Place Berlin in the congress acquisition domain. This is a coalition of the 18 leading Berlin agencies concerned with meetings, in-centives, Conventions and Events (MICE). The prime objective of this one-of-a-kind network in Germany is to promote and advertise Berlin as international top destination for MICE projects in cooperation with the Berlin Convention Office (BCO).
Berlin Preferred Agencies provide customized individual solutions complementing the information and reservation Services made available by the Berlin Convention Office - they supply detailed made-to-fit Services and options as well as the entire range of PCO Services, location recom-mendations, creative ideas for incentives and so-cial programs and other things more.

Berlin Preferred Agencies offer MICE-visitors to Berlin a ränge of products and Services a single agency wouldn't be able to provide: they promise that potential buyers will receive three proposals from three different profes-sional suppliers in response to their inquiries.
In addition, all associated agencies will act in compliance with a uniform ethical code and have agreed on a joint quality seal guaranteeing identically high quality Standards.
This alliance provides buyers with accumulated know-how and many years of experience combined with a creative pool, contacts and business reliability.

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