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CULTOUR is the first global cultural travel fair in the world. The fair is mixed, two days only for professionals – international wholesalers and German retailers – that offer travel programs related to culture, such as: short city breaks, festivals, religious events, pilgrimages, archaeology, art cities, cultural events, dance or musical festivals, theatre, musical shows, museums, wineries, ecology, sport events, gastronomy and a long etcetera. Two days, on the weekend, it will be open to the public.

The visiting tour operators invited by CULTOUR and that have requested to be registered in Cologne, are from all over the world: Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, France, Germany, Guatemala, Hong Kong, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, Philippines, Poland, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Switzerland, Thailand, USA, UK, Ukraine and Uruguay. A total of almost 200 international tour operators will be invited, transported and lodged by CULTOUR in Cologne.

The exhibitors, a similar number to the invited tour operators, are travel services suppliers such as national, regional and local tourist offices, hotels and incoming travel agencies, also from all over the world: Albania, Argentina, Armenia, Austria, Bahrain, Belgium, Belize, Bhutan, Brazil, Bulgaria, Cambodia, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Croatia, Cuba, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, France, Germany, Ghana, Greece, Guatemala, Guinea Bissau, Etiopía, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iceland, Cayman Islands, Israel, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, Latvia, Lithuania, Lybia, Malta, Morocco, Mexico, Mozambique, Namibia, Nepal, Norway, Netherlands, Pakistan, Palestina, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Rwanda, Serbia, Spain, Sri Lanka, South Africa, Sudan, Switzerland, Thailand, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, Turkey, UK, Ukraine, Uganda, United Arab Emirates, Uruguay, USA, Uzbekistan, Venezuela, Vietnam and Yemen.

Besides the two hundred international tour operators, German tour operators and agencies will also be invited, providing them with free round trip rail transportation to Cologne from anywhere in Germany. We estimate that more than 1,000 professional visitors will participate in Cologne.

Not only Cologne and Germany will have the unique opportunity of showing tour operators, local and international travel agencies their great and important cultural offer reflected in the gastronomy, wine routes, local celebrations, ecologic routes, musical festivals, concerts and much more, but also CULTOUR will be a stage where numerous worldwide countries and will show and promote their cultural offer.

In fact, cultural travel doesn’t need the high infrastructure investment and promotion like business travel does, it is the most interesting tourism sector for all the countries, and at the same time, is the most increasing and profitable tourism, according to the World Tourism Organization. Some exhibitors will also offer post CULTOUR fam trips for the hosted buyers: Romania and Croatia, for example.

CULTOUR is an atypical fair with differentiated features, all of them thought to make CULTOUR a business market where the international cultural offer can be successfully commercialised, offering very varied products to an also varied group of product managers from international tour operators. These features are:

• CULTOUR stands alone as the only European tourism fair that invites – covering their travel expenses – up to 250 U.S.A., Asian and European product managers of tour operating companies specializing in cultural travel: city breaks, wine tours, festivals, castles, gastronomy and a long etc. so they can meet with exhibitors to complete or incorporate new tours to their cultural travel programs.
• To complement CULTOUR’s hosted buyer program, German travel agents and tour operators will be offered free rail and bus transportation from anywhere in Germany to Koelnmesse to attend the fair as professional visitors.
• Since 65% of German travelers book directly their holidays, CULTOURFEST will be open on Saturday and Sunday to the traveling public from Cologne, Düsseldorf, and Bonn.
• No seminars will be held in conjunction with CULTOUR so as not to interfere with doing business between exhibitors and buyers.

Koelnturismus and Koelnmesse (Cologne’s tourist office and congress center) are CULTOUR’s co-sponsors.