West Bengal is all set to join the ITB Berlin - the Berlin Internationale Tourismus-Börse to promote the state’s tourism potential at the fair. The West Bengal tourism department will set up stall from Mar 5 to 9, 2014, displaying tourism products from the snow caps in Darjeeling to the gentle rolling seas at Digha.

The USP of participation in the ITB Berlin is to exclusively focus the tourism opportunities in the state by marketing them to tour operators across the world. Thus leading tour operators, hoteliers, airlines from West Bengal, and the state tourism department will promote armed with packages looking forward to forge ties with buyers.

According to the officials, this participation in the ITB Berlin comes after the successful promotions earlier at the Singapore Tourism Fair and WTM London. Participation at ITB Berlin is considered important as all major tourism players in the world congregate at the fair. The fair had a turnover of 190 million Euros (2011: 180 million) a new record at the Messe Berlin.

During the financial year 2013, 58 in-house and guest events attracted around 26,000 exhibitors from more than 180 countries. In 2013 over 1.5 million visitors from Germany and abroad attended the company’s events, of whom 550,000 were trade visitors more than half of whom were from abroad.

Thus, B2B meetings with the tourism fraternity from West Bengal and the government will help identify opportunities in marketing West Bengal and help in shaping future strategies.

The fair will also help promote West Bengal’s tourism potential to thousands of journalists and industry's leading trade magazines, business and travel journalists from more than a 100 countries.