The visitors have left, already mined the colorful stands, artificial life disappears after five busy days just as fast as it moved into the exhibition halls. What remains is the impression of a vital industry, that even crises and paradigm shift can not harm permanently.

And once again the outcome is: The ITB is only as good as the season after which it takes place. The year 2012 was a difficult year in Europe, at least privately some dared to mention the word 'crisis'. Others suggested only that the hope of the industry due to the battered markets of the West, would turn from the old world to the new tourism markets of the East.

And all this indeed the ITB did reflect: Fewer visitors from Italy, Spain and Greece attended the show, but there were more professional audience from Arabia, India, and China. Overall, the trade fair company let it be known that the number of visitors increased slightly.

Not surprising: The economies of the Eastern countries grow, discover the tourism increasingly and even more professional as ever as a source of income as well as the growing prosperity residents who want to become acquainted with the world.

The importance of the ITB Berlin to the source market of Central Europe continues, in Germany alone are predicted for the year 2013 as high tourism spendings like never before. This comes just to the right time for the travel industry, because in southern Europe currently leisure trips may not necessarily the best topics to talk about.

For the emerging markets, however, the ITB is only partially interesting. Anyway, it is okay. In remarkable foresight the Berlin Messe society already in 2008 established the ITB Asia which since then takes place in Singapore in autumn annually. There the great growth stories will take place in the future - not least also because ITB Berlin is fully booked except for the last square, what 4hoteliers from personal observations can confirm.

But its special competence the ITB Berlin did develop in another field: as a thinktank for the travel industry, ITB Congress with more than 200 events, symposia, panels and presentations on emerging trends, business models and start-ups attracts more and more audience.

In 2013 roughly 25 percent more visitors than the year before were counted. This is easy to follow: What appeared at ITB stages on high-level officials and to what interesting subjects they took a position, is really impressive.

The main subjects of the Congress - around ITB and was sure then even - spoken, are the relocation of many business models from the stationary in the mobile Internet. For hoteliers it has the unpleasant aspect that the booking behaviour of guests is even less predictable and shorter than even in Internet times. This meaningful name "Very last minute" does explain itself - guest do book in the bus which takes you to the city centre. Hotels need to be prepared.

Another issue that came through in many places, is the growing influence of a global player in the travel market: Google. Not only by its dominant search engine, but also by the sharing portal YouTube and currently by their new hotel finder. The
video platform itself for many travellers in mature markets such as Central Europe has become a search engine more often used when the destination search as Google itself. Who wishes to improve his hotel's representation to the end customer, will depend to video content.

Finally, yet another form of content has become a dominant topic of the ITB: Guest reviews. A dozen Conference events revolved around the verification, management and placement of guest reviews, in the hotel business a veritable currency, deadly serious now assumed as SEO and marketing tool. To give just one example about the meaning guest reviews already have: In the ancient tourist destination Switzerland from 2014 on the TrustScore from review management provider "Trust you" will be involved in the star rating of each hotel. The Internet has finally arrived in the real world, whether we like it or not.

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Roland Wildberg is Travel Writer and Correspondent based in Berlin, Germany. He started as an Editor for the National daily 'Die Welt' (tourism section), later on switched to a freelanced career and nowadays mainly publishes on the Web. Observing the hospitality industry always has fascinated him as it looks like the perfect combination of sleeping and writing – work-live-balance as its best.

Roland also heads the annual 4Hoteliers ITB Berlin news micro-site journalist and video/photo teams for the 5th consecutive years.