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Letter from Berlin: The hard, hard world of online travel
Friday, 6th March 2015
Source : Yeoh Siew Hoon - Web in Travel

First stop, KaDaWe, the store that once was the beacon of capitalism when the Berlin Wall was still a Wall, it’s been upgraded and refreshed but essentially the layout’s still the same.

The sixth floor is where, during ITB week, you will run into the world’s travel industry professionals who come here for their annual fix. Everyone has their favourite. Mine is Chicken & Co.

Everyone has their favourite story. One staple is Tegel Airport and how over the last four decades of ITB Berlin, it hasn’t changed much. Just like KDW.

Everyone also has their favourite hotel. I met someone who’s stayed at the same hotel for 20 years. “It’s easy,” he said when I asked him why.

Planet’s biggest travel show draws thousands of visitors to Berlin, and to this popular site " Checkpoint Charlie. (Image credit: Kimberley Chee)

For us humans, old habits die hard. Yet great winds of change are buffeting Europe’s travel industry, not least Germany, the biggest market on the continent and that has enabled ITB Berlin to grow and become the biggest travel industry show on the planet.

The headline of the week is TUI Group closing down Asiarooms.com.

Hardly surprising " rumours had been flying for the last year or so that it was bleeding and staff had been laid off " but it underscores several points.

One, it is hard for a traditional travel company to make the leap to online. TUI Travel bought the Asia Rooms brand in 2007 for US$67.5 million, hoping it would buy the company some foothold in the online market.

Here’s the statement from the spokesperson about the closing. “In a highly competitive market, AsiaRooms.com has struggled over the years to perform in line with expectations and we have not seen the improvements needed in order to support further investment.” (In other words, let’s cut our losses while we can.)

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