Germans are the World Champions of travel. They've maintained their crown for the world's biggest spending travellers at Germany's biggest tourism trade fair for the public - the Caravaning, Tourism and Motoring (CMT) trade fair - in Stuttgart.

Every year in January, more than 200,000 people from the Stuttgart area flock to the nine-day-long event to collect information for their next holiday. More than 1800 exhibitors from around 100 countries set up stands at the CMT to entice travel-hungry Germans to their part of the world.

While tourism industry experts point to a slight downturn in tourism earnings for the coming year, the travel industry is not expected to be hit especially hard by the current financial and economic crisis. Travel experts are predicting a two percent decline German tourism turnover for 2009 - it would be the first decline in earnings since 2001.

All the way to the USA
One country that is becoming increasingly interesting again for German travellers is the USA. After the terrorist attacks on the United States in September 2001, Germans - along with others - stopped travelling to the USA en masse. Now, after years of stagnation, and helped by a strong euro as against the US dollar, more and more Germans are travelling across the Atlantic for their vacation. There's been a 15 percent increase in the number of German visitors to the United States over the last year.

The 'catch-up' has not been significant enough to rival the record number of Germans (around two million) who visited the USA annually at the end of the 1990s but travel to the USA is definetely back in favour, say experts. The United States stand at this year's CMT has been well visited.

Britain, mostly, draws a blank
One of the significant omissions among English-speaking countries at this year's CMT is the English. Great Britain used to have a large stand at the fair to entice Germans to travel across the English Channel. This year, they don't have a stand at all. Wales does have its own stand but not as part of a UK stand. CMT officials could offer no explanation for the absence.

Irish, Canadian and Australian tourism organisations are represented at the trade fair, as are some promoters of travel to New Zealand and English-speaking countries from Asia and Africa.

Photo credit: Messe Stuttgart