Experience Germany’s Natural Wonders

From the Alps overlooking Munich to the beach views of the Wadden Sea north of Hamburg, holidays in the heart of nature was the focus of a recent Toronto event put on by the German National Tourist Office and Lufthansa.

“We know that Canada itself has a lot of nature so what we want to focus on is all the nearby stunning nature you can experience when you are going to all of the cities in Germany,” Antje Splettstoesser, director of marketing & sales, Canada, for the GNTO told PressToday. “What’s well known to Canadians is probably the Black Forest Mountains, the rolling hills, but many people don’t know for example that close to Cologne we still have old volcano landscape. It’s beautiful to walk through it.”

Throughout the year, the newly launched worldwide marketing campaign and trade activities will highlight 130 natural landscapes, including 16 national parks, 15 UNESCO protected biosphere reserves and more than 100 natural parks.

“Everyone is stunned by the fact that we have over 350 islands in Germany, that’s absolutely not a known fact to the overseas market or that 1/3 of the country is completely forest land,” she says. “We want to make sure that when people travel from A to B, they know what’s in between.”

Those on social media are invited to share pictures of their favourite spots using the hashtag #EnjoyGermanNature, which will be posted on a social wall at http://www.germany.travel/enjoygermannature.
The web site also includes a new destination finder agents who plan FIT travel can use to come up with other attractions clients may want to take in while in the country.

“They can enter if their clients like dramatic landscapes and if they like culture in that dramatic landscape, like a UNESCO world heritage site,” she says. “It’s literally a little bit like speed dating. You can pull down all of these check marks and then our website comes up with 10 suggestions and tells you how much it matches to the wishes of your clients.”

Canadian arrivals to Germany from Jan. to Nov. 2015 showed a 3.5% increase, much higher than the anticipated 2% growth.

In partnership with Lufthansa, Hans DeHaan, director, Canada of the Lufthansa Group, was on hand at the event to share some news about its airlines.

“We’re going to be celebrating 60 years flying in Canada this year,” he told PressToday.

The first flight was from Hamburg to Montreal in April, 1956. Last year, the company transported a record 107.7 million passengers and more than 1 million passengers on Canadian routes. Lufthansa also added the world’s first A320neo to its fleet in January, and plans on replacing all A320s with the air crafts, which result in fuel burn savings, reduced engine noise and lower emissions.

Pictured at the event are Juliane Ehrich, GNTO Canada, DeHaan and Splettstoesser.