A Tourism lesson From Berlin, You Don’t Have to Start Big

This week Berlin is celebrating the 53 years anniversary of one of the largest Tourism trade shows in the world. What began in 1966 as a small event in the framework of an overseas import trade show has developed into a true global success. The original five participating countries and regions have grown to over 180, the first 250 trade visitors have increased to over 114,000 and the exhibition space expanded from 580 m² to today’s 160,000 m².

I arrived in Berlin from London, UK, where I stayed for a few days to meet a few potential partners for the Tourism Innovation Center, an organization that aims to stimulate innovation and entrepreneurship in the tourism sector in Haiti by developing new partnerships through programs and cross-border networks in the tourism industry, as well as the public and private sectors. Travel & Tourism is responsible for the creation of 7 million new jobs worldwide, while the sector as a whole grew at 4.6%, much faster than the rest of the economy, according to the World Travel Tourism Council’s (WTTC) Economic Impact Research. If we are serious about developing Haiti economically, we should include a tourism development strategy, and we definitely don’t have to start big, we only need to start with a big vision and execute in a timely manner with probably several small scale investments, projects and tourism events…