The desire among Indians to visit offbeat German locales is providing a fillip to German tourism, according to tour operators and German tourism officials.
“Lots of Indians are looking at offbeat locations and want to explore castles in Bavaria and mountains in Zugspitze,” said M.P. Joy, Chief Executive Officer of Travelzon.in and the Chairman of the Enterprising Travel Agents Association (Karnataka Chapter).
Bavaria is home to many 1,000-year-old castles, while Zugspitze, with an altitude of around 3,000 m is said to have the highest ski area (22 km) in Germany and offers tourists who reach the summit a panoramic view of 400 peaks in four different countries.
Germany is attracting people who want to stay far from the madding crowd, said Narayan Hegde, Manager - Sales, Travel Air Representations. “Germany is very clean and neat and less crowded when compared to places like London,” he said.
Germany is also more economical when compared to other countries and this is one of the reasons why the country is the second most important destination in Europe after the UK, said Romit Theophilus, Director of Marketing and Sales Office, India, German National Tourist Office. “Berlin has more hotel rooms than New York and prices are lower there because there is more supply than demand,” he said. When asked about targets in 2012, he said, “In calendar year 2011, we got over 5.47 lakh overnight visitors and we will be increasing this by 10 per cent to cross 6 lakh visitors by December 2012.”
Apart from tourism, Germany also has a lot of options for business travellers. “Since the 1980s, there have been a lot of trade fairs in Germany,” said M Kadiravan, Associate Vice-President - Products and Contracting, Gateway IT and Travel Solutions.