Berlin, 9 November 2012 More than one million visitors took advantage of the final days of summer to take a trip to the German capital. The city's hotels and guest houses welcomed 1,011,342 guests in September, a growth of 5.9 per cent. The number of overnight stays increased by 9.3 per cent to 2.3 million. An especially large number of visitors travelled from abroad to the German capital (+ 13.6 per cent).

BRIC Countries are growing markets for Berlin Tourism

High growth rates were registered with visitors from Brazil (+ 20.2 per cent), Russia (+ 49.7 per cent), India (+ 31.5 per cent) and China (+ 35.7 per cent). The increasing number of guests from the BRIC countries reflects visitBerlin's recent marketing focus. In addition, significant growth was seen in the number of travellers from countries in the Middle East: Berlin welcomed 43.1 per cent more guests from the Arab Gulf States and 20 percent more visitors from Israel.

A total of 405,877 international guests spent time at the river Spree in September. They accounted for more than 1 million overnight stays that month (+ 15.4 per cent). The 605,465 German guests stayed 1.3 million nights in their capital (+ 5.1 per cent).

"The success of the past nine months has shown just how attractive the destination Berlin really is", says Burkhard Kieker, CEO of visitBerlin. "Especially our marketing efforts in Brazil, Russia, India, and China have paid off with high growth rates in visitors from those countries".

Trade fairs are an important factor of success

Berlin owes the high number of its international guests in September to the several popular trade fairs which were held in the capital. The ILA Berlin Air Show recorded 230,000 visitors, 240,000 consumer electronics enthusiasts came to IFA, and Innotrans welcomed more than 120,000 trade visitors from 140 countries. International guests were also drawn by events such as the Berlin Music Week and the Berlin Art Week.

In September 779 accommodation providers were available with 125,610 beds for tourists and business travellers.

Who comes from where and for how long? Tourism-Statistics