Wadden Sea World Heritage receives “Best Exhibitor Award” at 2018 ITB travel fair

The Wadden Sea World Heritage stand was awarded second prize in the category "Travel Support and Media" at the Cologne Business School's "Best Exhibitor Awards" (BEA). For the fourth consecutive year the Trilateral Wadden Sea Cooperation, partnering with the UNESCO World Heritage Centre, organized a stand at the world's largest tourism fair ITB. The Best Exhibitor Award has been a quality indicator for attractive exhibits at ITB Berlin for 18 years. Wadden Sea representatives from Denmark, the Netherlands and Germany accepted the award at the award ceremony on 12 March at the Berlin Messe exhibition grounds.

"The BEAs are considered the Oscars of tourism fairs," says Rüdiger Strempel, Executive Secretary of the Common Wadden Sea Secretariat (CWSS). "So we are thrilled with this success and the fact that we can hold our big players such as Munich Airpor, which came in first in our category.” Says Anja Domnick, Sustainable Tourism Officer with CWSS: “Especially for our stakeholders, some of whom were involved this year, this is a very positive result. World Heritage and sustainable tourism are attractive and stakeholders in the Wadden Sea Region can build on this."

During the days for trade visitors of the world’s biggest tourism fair from 7-11 March, more than 30 International Tourism Management students of Cologne Business School (CBS) evaluated the nearly 2,000 booths. They rated the exhibitors in eleven categories such as booth design, authenticity, sustainability and service. In accordance with the motto “People. Protecting. Places.”, the two-stand concept of the Wadden Sea World Heritage convinced the jury with activities and talks on sustainable tourism. At the main stand the Wadden Sea World Heritage and the UNESCO World Heritage Centre, Paris invited visitors to exchange knowledge and ideas on World Heritage and sustainable tourism. A second area offered a stakeholder platform in form of a marketplace for Wadden Sea World Heritage-related commercial services and products. The stakeholders are partners of the Dutch-German INTERREG V A project Wadden-Agenda and the partnership programs of the Wadden Sea National Parks in Lower Saxony and Schleswig-Holstein.

In 2016, the Wadden Sea World Heritage stand was already awarded third prize in the same category.