International activities of the "9 Cities + 1 in Lower Saxony" city partnership are bearing fruit

In 2017, the Lower Saxony State Office for Statistics (LSN) recorded more than 1 million overnight stays by international visitors in the member cities of the “9 Cities + 1 in Lower Saxony” partnership, representing an increase of more than 4 percent compared to 2016. In total, the cities recorded nearly 5.5 million overnight stays.  Overnight stays by international visitors account for nearly 20 percent of the total. “These figures demonstrate the importance of city tourism in the international marketing of the state of Lower Saxony and the success of the long-standing work of the city partnership,” explains Hans Christian Nolte, spokesperson for the partnership and managing director of Hannover Marketing und Tourismus GmbH (HMTG).

Even at the start of spring, we can already look back on several successful collaborative projects from 2018. For example, the “9 Cities + 1” presented themselves at the most important travel fairs in the Netherlands and Denmark, and participated in the Germany Travel Show in London and the International Tourism Exchange (ITB) in Berlin.  Just in time for the ITB, the brochure “Your perfect day – Ihr perfekter Tag” was also published. Its 24 pages offer special tips for visiting the cities and the Autostadt in Wolfsburg.  Around 30,000 copies of the brochure were distributed at the start of the ITB, inserted into a brochure from Hannover Marketing und Tourismus GmbH and made available on ICE trains en route to Berlin. The project was also promoted on 24 large-format posters in the German capital.

The international marketing partnership “9 Cities + 1 in Lower Saxony” was founded more than 30 years ago. The membership has remained unchanged since then. In 2011, the Autostadt in Wolfsburg joined the partnership. The primary goal of these activities is to raise awareness of the member cities in neighboring European countries.