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23.11.2011
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This week, a three-week tourism campaign was launched inviting Germans to enjoy a cultural holiday in Estonia. The campaign focuses on the residents of the Land of North Rhine-Westphalia and its larger cities of Düsseldorf and Cologne. Enterprise Estonia is financing the campaign from the funds of the European Regional Development Fund.

The campaign is targeted at educated, higher-income Germans over the age of 45, interested in history and culture, whose attention is drawn by the Estonian culture personas familiar to the German cultural scene, e.g. composer Arvo Pärt, conductor Paavo Järvi, designer Liina Viira, but also the Estonian-origin conductor Kristiina Poska, residing in Germany, and the renowned German actor Edgar Selge, starring in The Poll Diaries.

"This is the grandest campaign introducing Estonia that we have ever had in Germany. Estonian culture is known there through certain key words, and we are using these in our campaign in order to reach our target group," noted Tarmo Mutso, director of the Tourism Development Centre of Enterprise Estonia. "The Germans have a specific image of Estonia; they are a nation belonging to a historically similar cultural space, and come to Estonia with a clear knowledge of what to expect," Mutso added.

Out of the total number of tourists in Estonia, Germans rank third after Finnish and Russian tourists. The number of overnight stays by tourists this year is approaching the 2005 record: the number of overnight stays in the first eight months has increased by 29% as compared with the same period last year, and the number of people being accommodated has increased by 23% respectively. An especially marked rise in overnight stays can be seen in Tallinn (+34%), surpassing the 2005 record, and in Ida-Viru County (+186%), while the number of German tourists has also soared in Saare County and Lääne-Viru County.

"This cultural year looks like the year of the German tourist. We wish that the coming year would be the same," Mutso marked.

The advertisements are published in German print media as content inserts, but also in travel, city and info portals. The main prize for an internet-based consumer game is a luxurious cultural trip to Tallinn.

As supporting activities, the Tourism Development Centre of Enterprise Estonia has this year organised a joint Estonian stand at the ITB Berlin Travel Trade Show, arranged press trips to Estonia - in the framework of which 25 German reporters were hosted - arranged product promotion trips for tour operators, and held sales training events for 800 German travel agency workers.