Berlin, 1 August 2013 In 15 cities, the interactive visitBerlin summer tour is hitting the road again from 1 August to 16 September. After last year's first summer tour, Berlin will once again be travelling throughout Germany and for the first time also through Poland.

"The summer tour has been a hit— last year, we inspired about 500,000 Germans to consider visiting their capital", says visitBerlin CEO Burkhard Kieker. "This year, we're crossing borders and taking the road show to Poland for the first time. We're welcoming more and more Polish visitors to Berlin and we want to develop this potential."

Berlin to Attend Festivals in Stuttgart, Rostock and Frankfurt

In August, the road tour will hit three festivals in Germany: the Stuttgart Sommerfest from 1–4 August, the Hanse Sail in Rostock from 8–11 August and the Frankfurt Museumsuferfest from 23–25 August 2013. Berlin will appear on stage with a fun, informative show completed with break-dancers and games. Festival attendees can learn about Berlin from the interactive displays and by speaking with our Berlin experts. Germany remains by far the most important market for Berlin tourism: 57.5 per cent of the 11 million visitors to Berlin last year came from Germany.

Berlin and Oder Region on Tour

In September, visitBerlin is adding another star attraction to the tour as the members of the Oder Partnership* join us for the second leg of the tour to promote travel to Berlin and the Oder River Region. The tour bus will visit five German and six Polish cities. Under the slogan "Get to Know your Neighbours", visitors will get information about the cross-border tourism cooperation of the Oder Partnership and about tourist destinations in the regions.

Berlin welcomed about 110,000 visitors from Poland in 2012, about 12.7 per cent more than the year before. And the positive trend continues: in May 2013, there were 38.6 per cent more Polish visitors spending one night or more in the German capital than in the year before. With the summer tour, visitBerlin is strengthening its long-standing cooperation with the Oder Partnership.

Berlin Trip as Main Prize

Everyone who tests their knowledge about Berlin and the Oder River Region in a quiz based on the popular German quiz show 1,2 oder 3 has a chance to win one of several attractive prizes. Each day, the main prize will be a trip to the German capital, including two nights for two people in nh hotels Berlin, two tickets to Yadegar Asisi's Berlin Wall Panorama, a shopping voucher for the Designer Outlet Berlin, as well as the Berlin WelcomeCard tourist pass.

Berlin, the City of Sport

While on the summer tour, Berlin will proudly present itself as a city of sport. Every year,

Berlin hosts several major sporting events, such as the BMW Berlin Marathon, the ISTAF

athletics meeting, the traditional Sechstagerennen (Six-Day Race) and the men's DFB Football

Cup finale. At the same time, Berlin is home to six professional teams competing in five

sports, more than any other German city. The Berlin experts on the summer tour bus are

ready to offer tips on upcoming sports events and trend sports.

* The Oder River Partnership

The Oder River Partnership is an interregional cooperative network made up of the German states of Berlin, Brandenburg,Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and Saxony and the western Polish provinces Greater Poland, West Pomerania, Lower Silesia and Lubusz under the slogan "Borders separate but the Oder joins". The aim of this cross-border initiative is the development of an efficient regional network to connect the infrastructure and policies of the regions on both sides of the Oder and cooperate in as many ways as possible to make this a dynamic economic region.

visitBerlin

“We know Berlin”. This is the slogan that Berlin Tourismus & Kongress GmbH, operating under the trade name visitBerlin, has been using since 1993 to globally advertise for Berlin as a travel destination. visitBerlin’s Berlin Convention Office markets the German capital as a congress metropolis. As a tour operator, the company offers a wide range of travel packages and also issues the official tourist ticket, the Berlin WelcomeCard.

visitBerlin operates four Berlin Tourist Infos. The Berlin Service Center (Tel. 030-25 00 25) provides information on the complete spectrum of tourist services in Berlin. Information on the German capital is available in 13 different languages at visitBerlin.com.