LEIPZIG: THE CENTER OF TOURISM GROWTH IN GERMANY

Germany has a number of large metropolitan areas and most of them are well-known all over the world. Leipzig, however, is mostly known for it being the original start of the infamous Berlin Wall. However, the city is now becoming more famous for a number of other reasons; including becoming one of Europe’s trade fair centres and being the hometown of a certain Johann Sebastian Bach. The popularity of Leipzig is shown in its very impressive figures from the first half of this year. The city is continually receiving more and more visitors from both sides of Europe.

In the first half of 2008, Leipzig amazingly experienced a growth in international visits of 36%. Düsseldorf came in second place with a growth rate of 32.7% and Hamburg got the bronze medal with a growth rate for international visits on 7.3%.

Some will say that the seeming success of Leipzig in recent times is not relevant to the current situation. Firstly, it could be quite rightly argued that Leipzig had much more room for improvement compared to other German cities as places such as Berlin, Munich or Hamburg would struggle to host more foreigners. Thus, Leipzig is just catching up. Secondly, Germany in general has seen an increase of foreign arrivals of 5.6% so far this year, meaning that Leipzig is nothing exceptional.

Despite these doubts, nobody can take away the fact that Leipzig has enjoyed a large amount of success and that the figures are still impressive. It is worth mentioning that the relevant surveys were carried out according to figures from hotels with 9 beds or more. Most of the new arrivals have been coming from the UK, the USA, the Netherlands and Belgium. Nevertheless, there has been a 128.4% increase in the amount of visitors from Russia, who tend to spend more than their western counterparts. If the cultural marketing continues, the future looks bright for Leipzig.