This year the media will gather in Berlin from March 6th 2012, on the eve of ITB Berlin, as the world’s leading travel trade show devotes the day entirely to the sector for the first time.

Events will feature the opening press conference of ITB Berlin and further press conferences with individual exhibitors.

An event welcoming bloggers from Germany and abroad, who this year will find a large number of events and discussion rounds on the Berlin Exhibition Grounds, will round off the ITB Media Day.

On March 6th at 10:00 the opening press conference of ITB Berlin will kick off events at the Palais am Funkturm on Hammarskjöldplatz, where the organisers of ITB Berlin will provide information on bookings and exhibitor numbers as well as trends and the challenges facing the world’s travel industry.

This will be followed by a press conference with the Hungarian Tourist Board at Empore Ost which starts at 11:30.

Afterwards, the Japanese Tourist Board will report on all the latest news for travellers to Japan at an event in the central area of the ground floor, starting at 13:00.

At 14:30 ruf, a tour operator which organises accompanied travel for children, young people and young adults, will talk about developments in the market for young travellers as well as the company’s thirtieth anniversary.

Towards the end of the afternoon the focus will be on bloggers.

From 17:00, Travel Massive @ITB Berlin will welcome bloggers from around the world at the Palais am Funkturm.

At ITB Berlin the global networking initiative Travel Massive is organised by pocketvillage.de and sponsored by visitBerlin.

Bloggers will be able to exchange views with the management of ITB Berlin and representatives of start-ups and tour operators in a relaxed atmosphere.

Blogosphere

A variety of events for bloggers and anyone interested in blogging are also scheduled to take place during ITB Berlin.

The New Media Summit at the eTravel World in Hall 7.1c, a special event for bloggers, will take place on Thursday, March 8th at 10:30.

On Friday, March 9th at 11:30, taking as their slogan “New kids on the blog – how destinations can succeed in the blogosphere”, tourist boards and bloggers will be discussing in what way and to what degree travel bloggers can successfully market destinations.

Taking part in the discussion will be Reine Gammoh of Visit Jordan and blogger Keith Jenkins, who have jointly realised the iAmbassador project for Jordan.

Michael Buller, chairman of Verband Internet-Reisevertrieb e.V. (VIR), will moderate the debate.

During the afternoon the third ITB Media Summit will address the following issues: “How are travel bloggers, corporate bloggers and travel technology bloggers changing the traditional media landscape?”.

Dirk Rogl, deputy editor-in-chief of the business magazine fvw, will moderate the event.

Among those taking part will be Angelika Schwaff, press spokeswoman of germanwings, a travel blogger and former travel journalist, and Sebastian Heinzel, chief executive and corporate blogger, tripwolf.com, who will be discussing the transition from an electronic diary to a professional internet medium (Hall 7.1b, London Room, 14:45-16:00).