The German Tourist Board held a seminar for the travel industry to update tourism in Saxony in 2023. The presentation was given by Wolfgang Gartner, Director of Marketing at Saxony Tourism. He is currently visiting East Asian markets such as China, Korea, and Taiwan, and has not been to Japan in four years, since 2019.
Mr. Gartner prepared a voluminous slide presentation. First, showing a map of Germany, he introduced basic information about Saxony, one of the 16 German states, with Dresden as its capital. The largest city is Leipzig, and the oldest city is Meissen (famous for its ceramics).
Gartner covered the important tourism topics for Saxony in chronological order: before the pandemic, during the pandemic, and after 2023. As you can see from the slides, the number of years, such as the 300th, 450th, and 950th anniversaries, shows that this is a destination with a deep history and culture.
Gartner listed 10 items as “things that happened in Saxony during the pandemic.” He mentioned that a new website was launched in eight languages (unfortunately, no Japanese) and that the beautiful town of Görlitz on the Polish border will celebrate its 950th anniversary in 2021.
Görlitz, one of the most beautiful cities in Germany, is also famous as a filming location for movies, including “The Grand Budapest Hotel,” which won four Academy Awards, and “The Reader,” starring Kate Winslet.
After the presentations, the participating travel agencies and Mr. Akira Nishiyama, Director of the Japan Branch of the German National Tourist Office, gave an update on the current state of travel to Germany. He said that although overseas travel by Japanese has finally started to take off, the weak yen, the Ukraine issue, and soaring fuel surcharges are still keeping people away from traveling to Europe for travel purposes.
One of the most interesting stories I heard was that, compared to other Asian countries, “Japanese who visit Germany do a lot of preparation for their visit. Compared to other Asian countries, Japanese who visit Germany do a lot of preparation for their visit. They are very curious and eager to learn about music, history, paintings, crafts, and so on. They also have a good eye for things, and German people have a very good impression of Japanese tourists.
Why don’t you take a look at the tourist attractions in Saxony that I have introduced here as a preview of your trip to Germany in the near future? By the way, I am tempted to go to Dresden to see Raphael’s “Sistine Madonna” in the hope of meeting the two angels, and I am thinking of doing some preliminary study on German art.
© Source travel watch