The German National Tourist Board (GNTB), together with over 20 leading German tourism partners, concluded a successful appearance at the Arabian Travel Market 2018.

For four days, visitors to the German National Tourist Board’s stand met representatives of a broad selection of tourism enterprises and regions such as the State Tourist Board Baden-Württemberg and the Black Forest Highlands, the great cities of Cologne, Frankfurt, Dusseldorf, Hannover and the scenic Wiesbaden in Hesse. The participants hailed from various sectors including luxurious hotels, department stores and designer outlet malls, as well as state-of-the-art hospitals and medical providers.

Additionally, in line with GNTB’s central annual campaign ‘Culinary Germany’, visitors were invited to savour a taste of the German cuisine with a variety of pretzels and cakes in addition to the German potato salad and the famous schnitzel.

Sigrid de Mazieres, director for the Gulf countries at the German National Tourist Office (GNTO), an affiliate of the German National Tourist Board, said: "We are delighted with the outcome of our participation at the Arabian Travel Market, where we updated the region’s tourism industry about Germany’s great diversity and travel offerings and we hope to have inspired many in view of the upcoming summer holiday season. Our presence at ATM shows the importance of the GCC region for the German tourism sector, and we are very pleased with the strong response we received towards ‘Destination Germany’.”

During the exhibition, GNTB revealed a surge of 3.7 per cent in the number of overnight stays from the GCC region in Germany, recorded in January 2018 compared to the same period of last year. This development reaffirms Germany's growing interest in the GCC market as a source of inbound tourism.

Supporting this outlook, the German stand visitors during ATM 2018 expressed significant interest in visiting Germany, both for business and leisure, citing the country's natural beauty, rich cultural offerings and impressive infrastructure as main reasons for travel.