ITB Berlin

Last week I spend three days in ITB Berlin, which can be characterized a ”pretty big deal” for travel professionals around the globe (in case you feel like learning what ITB actually is, check this). My background lies in hospitality business, so no surprise I found myself mostly seated in hall 7, the venue dedicated to Hospitality, Future and else. One of the hot topic among tourism seemed to be Sharing Economy and I was glad to get civilized about it by Olivier Grémillon from Airbnb (Managing Director EMEA) & Pierre-Dimitri Gore-Coty from Uber (General Manager Western Europe) as well as Dina Soliman (lady responsible of brands such as Indigo), jus to name few. The most inspirational speech I got to hear was thrown by April Rinne (in the photo below). ”Live like local and give back” was April´s interpretation about the modern traveler wandering around with logic of sharing. Gotta admit, April kind of convinced me with her great presentation!

Anyways, what I got left with, is that sharing economy seems to be influential thing not only in lodging business but can potentially be changing the way we travel. It´s also a thing that raises feelings; some ❤ it, others totally cannot seem to stand it. My opinion? It is a mega trend that will have (and is already having quite) a big impact on our industry. We (tourism professionals) should rather make the best of it than end up fighting against it! Is it just a one way of capitalism? Probably it is, but perhaps with the help of this trend we could develop more equal and more sustainable ways of living/traveling. One way of thinking sharing economy is looking at it from the efficiency point of view (this is strictly April´s idea, not mine); think about your private car, how much you use it? Perhaps an hour a day? If so, there´s potential of 23 hours (of your car´s time) being wasted every day.

How was Berlin outside the convention center (it took me 20 minutes to find my way out every day..)? Well, mostly the city made me realize that I miss travel so much that it hurts.Otherwise please enjoy few picks from my visit.