Wego and German National Tourism Office Sign New Partnership

• Germany ranks in the top 10 destinations for MENA travellers
• GCC is the second strongest overseas market for inbound tourism to Germany
• Over 130,642 overnights stays have been recorded by GCC travellers to Germany in Q1 2022 with an increase of 258% in comparison to Q1 2021

Dubai, UAE, 29 June 2022: Wego, the largest online travel marketplace in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), and German National Tourist Office for the GCC sign new partnership to inspire travellers to visit the country post COVID-19.

The German.Local.Culture. campaign promotes Germany focusing on four themes: ‘Flair, Craft, Taste and Green’. The campaign will be marketed to Wego’s wide user base to bring more travellers from the MENA region.

Wego’s data shows that Germany is in the top 10 destinations for MENA travellers looking to travel to Europe in 2022.

The campaign will be launched digitally through social media networks for a broader reach to establish an authentic image of Germany as a sustainable travel destination. The country attracts tourists for its historic architecture, picturesque Old Towns, urban city vitality, impressive industrial monuments, castles and palaces and unspoiled nature.

The 'Flair' theme showcases the architectural styles of the German cities and places of cultural interest to the tourists. The theme highlights the regional roots of small towns with fascinating historical stories. GNTB, through the campaign, aims to reignite the love of architecture among foreign tourists.

Mamoun Hmedan, Chief Commercial Officer and Managing Director, Middle East, North Africa (MENA) and India of Wego, said: “Following the successful campaigns, we’re partnering with the German National Tourist Board for the third year running. We are looking forward to inviting even more travellers to this preferred European destination through this campaign.”

The campaign also focuses on enjoyable travel experiences even under covid-19 circumstances. These experiences include Germany's classical and world-famous opera houses attracting about one-third of worldwide operatic performances. The famous opera houses have historic concert halls, ornate stucco, and plush furniture. 

Yamina Sofo, director of sales and marketing at the German National Tourist Office (GNTO GCC), said: “The GCC is our second-strongest overseas market with more than 130,000 overnight stays recorded in the first quarter of 2022. That is an immense increase of roughly 258 per cent when compared to the same period of 2021. Our German.Local.Culture. campaign aims to inspire travellers to explore Germany differently, immersing themselves in the country’s cultural delicacies. Summer travels are just around the corner, and we are eagerly awaiting an influx of visitors from the GCC coming to enjoy the four elements of the campaign: Craft, Taste, Flair, and Green.”

Outletcity Metzingen, the largest outlet in Europe*, is a must see for all types of travellers as it combines shopping with award-winning architecture and that metropolitan feeling in a stimulating neighbourhood with mountains, palaces, and the idyllic, romantic half-timbered house-aesthetic. The city has more than 150 world-famous brands and is the hometown of Hugo Boss with a long history in textiles. The buildings are grouped loosely with open areas with fountains and gardens inviting visitors to linger and stroll. Here travellers can expect to get a great deal of up to 70% discount** on fashion, accessories, beauty products and home living products. In this way Outletcity Metzingen combines all themes of the German.Local.Culture campaign.

Before the pandemic, Germany reported the arrival of about 39.56 million tourists. The German.Local.Culture. campaign focuses on rebounding the tourism sector and attracting more visitors.

About Wego

Wego provides award-winning travel search websites and top-ranked mobile apps for travellers living in the Asia Pacific and the Middle East regions. Wego harnesses powerful yet simple to use technology that automates the process of searching and comparing results from hundreds of airlines, hotels, and online travel agency websites.

Wego presents an unbiased comparison of all travel products and prices offered in the marketplace by merchants, both local and global, and enables shoppers to quickly find the best deal and place to book whether it is from an airline or hotel directly or with a third-party aggregator websites.

Wego was founded in 2005 and is headquartered in Dubai and Singapore with regional operations in Bangalore، Jakarta and Cairo.

About the GNTB

The German National Tourist Board (GNTB) is Germany’s national tourism organisation. It works on behalf of the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action to represent Germany as a tourist destination and is funded by the Ministry in accordance with a decision taken by the German Bundestag. Working closely with the German travel industry and private-sector partners and trade associations, the GNTB develops strategies and marketing campaigns to promote Germany’s positive image abroad as a tourist destination and to encourage tourists to visit the country.

The GNTB has a three-pronged recovery strategy for overcoming the challenges of the restart after the COVID-19 pandemic:

Raising awareness of the Destination Germany brand and enhancing the brand profile with a focus on sustainability and climate change mitigation

Supporting the travel industry, which is dominated by small and medium-sized businesses, through relationship management and the sharing of knowledge

Developing evidence-based action plans on the basis of targeted market research and ongoing analysis of changing customer demand.

Focus on sustainability and digitalisation

The GNTB promotes sustainable and forward-looking tourism in line with the objectives of the German government. The focus here is on sustainability and digitalisation.

Sustainability has been a core topic for more than a decade and we engage with it as a strategic issue across all areas of the organisation. Our organisation follows a three-pillar strategy that combines the sharing of knowledge with external partners and a supporting communications strategy with our internal sustainability initiative. The GNTB promotes responsible tourism, a key growth area, by showcasing Germany as a sustainable and inclusive destination in the international travel market. This is particularly important as the pandemic has accelerated the global shift in travellers’ values towards greater social and environmental responsibility.

The GNTB is a pioneer when it comes to using immersive technologies (virtual, augmented and mixed reality), voice assistants and other conversational interfaces, and artificial intelligence applications such as chatbots. To ensure that tourism offerings are visible on AI-based marketing platforms, the GNTB coordinates the German tourism industry’s open-data project, which aims to develop a tourism knowledge graph.