Record Year for Berlin Tourism Expected

The number of visitors to Berlin may reach a postwar high in 2004, Berlin's tourism organization revealed Monday. From January to May nearly 2.2 million people visited the capital, 17.1 percent more than during the same period last year. Hanns Peter Nerger, the head of Berlin Tourismus Marketing, attributed the 27.9 rise in foreign tourists to Americans overcoming their reluctance to travel in the wake of the terrorist attacks in September 2001. Hotels and pensions counted 4.8 million overnight stays during the first six months of the year, 15.3 percent more than during the first half of 2003. Nerger gave the New York Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) guest exhibition and the discount airlines credit for the increase in visitors to Berlin.