Almost 60 exhibitors, including museums from all over Europe, as well as cultural destinations and service providers will present themselves to the trade public at the world’s largest travel trade show. This year the cultural platform is in a new location, in Hall 6.2. Here, tour operators and journalists not only receive concrete information about current cultural projects and planned exhibitions, but also get to know new destinations.
For 15 years now, the Culture Lounge at ITB Berlin has offered an impressive selection of top-class cultural offerings from all over Europe. This time, both cultural capitals of the coming year will be represented with a stand: Bodø2024 (Norway) and Bad Ischl-Salzkammergut 2024 (Austria). In addition, numerous UNESCO World Heritage Sites and the UNESCO City of Media Arts, Karlsruhe, will present themselves. The range of museums is again broad: it extends from the Serlachius Museums from Finland to the Royal Museum of Fine Arts KMSKA in Antwerp, which reopened last year, and Austrian museums to the major museums in Bonn, Cologne, Mannheim, Karlsruhe, Wuppertal, Munich.
One of the exhibition highlights in 2023 is the anniversary exhibition Caspar David Friedrich, which will be shown at the Hamburger Kunsthalle from December 2023 to mark the 250th anniversary of the artist’s birth. The cultural regions of Flanders and Wallonia will also be included again. The matching trips are offered by art cities REISEN, the cultural travel partner of the Culture Lounge. With Beckerbillet and Ticketmaster, two major ticket sales partners will also inform visitors about their tailor-made offers for the cultural sector.
Not only the Culture Lounge Cafe but also the conference lounge promise an intensive exchange of information and experience for tourism professionals, cultural managers and media representatives. Once again, a varied program ranging from lectures on culture and tourism to trade presentations will be offered: For example, the European Capital of Culture Bodø2024 will present its concept “From Cold to Cool – Bringing People Together in the Arctic” (March 7, 12 noon). VISITFLANDERS, the KMSKA and the Mu.Zee will jointly give an overview of the cultural theme highlights 2023-2024 and the Ensor Year 2024 (March 7, 5 pm). And Karlsruhe Tourismus invites you to a discussion on the tourism potential of the UNESCO City of Media Arts Karlsruhe (March 7, 4 pm). Other topics on the programme include “Destinations in Transition”, “The Future of Tourist Information” and “Efficient Visitor Management”. For reasons of space, the Conference Lounge will be held this year in room DESSAU 1 in the immediate vicinity of the Culture Lounge.
The Culture Lounge was launched in 2008 by the projekt2508 group and has since developed into a fixed contact point for tour operators, journalists and important multipliers in the cultural travel segment.
