German Tourism to focus on ‘Culinary’ as the theme for 2018 News German Tourism will be highlighting the Culinary side of the destination as a theme to promote itself in overseas markets this year. As part of the thematic promotions, German National Tourist Office in India will undertake various consumer engagement activities with influencers/bloggers, etc. in the market in the coming months. Announcing the new theme for 2018, #EnjoyGermanFood: Culinary Germany, in Delhi this week, Romit Theophilus, Director for India, German National Tourist Office (GNTO) said that they will be launching a ‘game’ of matching German and Indian cuisines on facebook as well as cookery events for food influencers/bloggers, etc. They are also planning to fly in celebrity German chef to India or do food events with German chefs settled in India to create buzz about the theme and Germany’s vast treasure of food, wines, cheese, etc. He said that there will be 100s of food events lined up across cities of Germany through the year offering visitors to experience myriad culinary delights of the destination. Talking about the culinary offerings, he said that Germany produces over 300 different varieties of breads, 1500 different types of sausages, has 13 wine regions producing 140 different varieties of wines, 13,000 breweries producing 5,000 different types of beers, etc. When asked about engaging the travel partners in the promotions, Theophilus said that Culinary tours are already part of the packaging of many leading tour operators. He said that the travel trade will get to discuss the culinary destinations and the ways to package them with German DMCs at the forthcoming German Travel Mart (GTM). Talking about Indian outbound to Germany, Theophilus said that there has been over 13% growth in Indian overnights in Germany last year compared to 2016, and expects 5 to 8% growth in the current year. “Our target is to reach one million overnights by 2020, and 2 million by 2030,” he said. Germany had over 8.5 lakh overnights from India in 2017. Germany is the second highest visited destination by Indians in Europe after Britain and first among the Schengen countries, he said. Share this:FacebookX