The ITB tourism fair in Berlin, which was to be held next week (from March 4 to 8), has been canceled due to the threat of the coronavirus, which continues to spread through several countries, according to hosteltur.com
"ITB Berlin 2020 will not take place. Due to the increasing spread of the new coronavirus COVID-19, the Federal Ministry of Health and the Federal Ministry of Economy have decided to cancel the fair", according to the Messe Berlin fair institution.
The decision to cancel the fair would have been influenced by the recognition, by the World Health Organization, of a "potential pandemic".
"The health authority responsible for Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf in Berlin had increased the requirements for the event to take place. Among other things, the authority ordered that all participants in the fair should demonstrate to Messe Berlin that they do not come from the defined risk areas or that they have had contact with a person from the risk areas. Messe Berlin cannot implement all these requirements," the same sources add.
In addition, in recent days several tourism companies had announced that they were canceling events or the attendance of their teams during the week of ITB, including the HRS reservation center, the DerTouristik and Alltours tour operators, the Sunny Cars car rental company or Korean Air. "The risk is unpredictable," said some managers of these companies.
The chairman of the Supervisory Board of Messe Berlin, Wolf-Dieter Wolf, pointed out: "In its 54-year history, ITB Berlin and Messe Berlin had never experienced a comparable situation before."
It should be remembered that in Germany itself 27 new cases of coronavirus have been detected since this Thursday. In total there have been 53 positives throughout the country since the beginning of the year, although only one patient is seriously ill. In North Rhine-Westphalia alone, it is estimated that some 1,000 people are in quarantine, according to the newspaper Welt.
"Everything was booked"
The ITB pavilions were "completely booked", with more than 10,000 exhibitors from more than 180 countries, according to the fair.
Last year a total of 160,000 visitors passed through ITB, including 113,500 professional visitors.
Until the last minute, the organizers still assured that the fair would take place and that "the safety and health of the attendees is our number one priority."
To this end, they had tightened access measures, requiring all exhibitors to complete a declaration as "a condition for access to the fairgrounds and which serves to identify people who belong to a COVID 19 risk group."
