It's pretty contradicting: No jubilee festival, say the figures – in many countries, tourism industry is shrinking due to the financial and economic crisis.

But in Berlin you will find not one black ribbon on top of the flagstaff forest that greets visitors entering the ITB tourist fair.

In fact, the event is close to set a new record: The fair ground is booked out, the management just announced proudly; more than 11.000 exhibitors affront the crisis and show their products, services and destinations to the public and their partners. 120 ministers of tourism from all over the world are expected during the five days of ITB.

The good news cannot substitute the fact that Germany for example, currently the biggest market for outbound travelling, is anticipating a decrease of at least 5 percent bookings for the coming season.

"People are not generally abdicate travelling", bothers Klaus Laepple, President of the national travel agency association, to maintain optimism. Anyway, his country is still champion in tourism: Last year the Germans spent about 61,5 billions of euros (77,5 billions of dollars) on their most favourite hobby, getting away.

And what about the upcoming season? Bookings have been coming very unassertive, the managers admit. Frustrating as this sounds, it does not affect every segment likewise: Premium products loose nearly no attractiveness, whereas low fare are falling.

The renowned German society for consumer research "Gesellschaft für Konsumforschung" (GfK) just found out that trips above a net value of 1500 euros (1890 dollars) are selling like the years before, while products down 750 euros (945 dollars) suffer a lack of interest.

Generally, the vacations are getting shorter, and people tend to resign a second absence, for example during Easter or spring holidays. Especially families seem to save money, here the GfK noted a 14 percent less in the travel agencies until January.

Carefully assigned, this trend goes for all Western country, some of them maybe even worse. The recession grabs into the wallets of Americans and Europeans mostly. International tourism could shrink up to 2 percent, the World Tourism Organisation is worrying.

The lucky winners are luxury and premium brands as well as niches like cruises, as their clients are not as affected by the crisis as the less well-off people. As one result, the mighty TUI group decided to let parts of its staff get into short-time work.

At the ITB, picturesque entertainment and jolly music shall distract the publics' glances from the dark cloud above. And Laepple, the travel agency man, does his own to make them look beyond the troubles of the near future: "We now choose the course for the next boom", he said during the opening conference. How high-flying.