Innsbruck. Fascinated by the mountains, but irritated by the iPad. This summarizes pretty much the first sales trade fair in Innsbruck, titled “theALPS” Despite a difficult start, the trade fair is planned to be staged on an annual basis. The event managed to achieve its goal of emphasizing the importance of alpine tourism by introducing a new kind of trade fair and network format. Between June 5 and 7, “theALPS” counted a total of 500 participants, among them, 200 tourist experts and 90 purchasers from Austria, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, the Netherlands and Eastern Europe. The eleven regions coming together at this new platform and the international “Best of the Alps” alliance represent 375 million of the 500 million registered room nights in the Alpine region.
