Destination Guide
Berlin
The art of success
The new door-to-door service from London City to Berlin is good news for businesses, says Jonathan Hart
The launch of twice-daily Lufthansa flights from London City Airport earlier this year helped to ease one of the anomalies that are a signature of Berlin: the lack to date of a rapid, virtual door-to-door air service for big business.
Yet nearly 20 years since the fall of the Wall, this enigmatic city, having regained its status as the capital of Germany, continues to buck trends and confound normal business travel patterns or perceptions.
Perhaps both despite and because of being central to the long and costly process of national reunification, as well as being focal to controversial EU expansion and integration, Berlin remains psychologically isolated from the rest of Germany. The city is viewed by many as a national extravagance or outsider in the drive for a productive overall federalism, particularly by corporations in the long-established power centres, from Hamburg to Munich, whose taxes and industry largely funded the €300 billion and ongoing costs of reunification. This on top of heavily subsidising Berlin through the transformation from its former role as a one half bankrupt, one half decadent capitalist outpost stranded in a sea of communism.
The unified city is almost re-built now and the dense cobweb of cranes and dust pollution so common in recent years, has been reduced to a handful of giant strands stretching towards clearer and more optimistic skies.
The building site has been all but expensively re-converted, primped, fully digitalised and expanded into one of Europe's largest and most captivating capitals; the broad boulevards and sand-blasted grand edifices of old juxtaposed with visually stunning contemporary expressions in glass and chrome. All underscored by the openness, irreverence, passion for the arts and love of partying that cement Berlin's sentimental appeal for the non-conformist, socially avant-garde, highbrow and experimental.
About 60 of the 3,000 UK firms operating in Germany now have a presence in Berlin, according to British Chamber of Commerce figures. And in surrounding Brandenburg State, where aero engine manufacturer Rolls-Royce, plus a handful of other UK multinationals, have bases amid a featureless and empty landscape, new investment opportunities ostensibly beckon to capitalise on business at the cross-roads with the eastern part of the EU.
Yet, with an end to local subsidies and few real incentives, the bulk of both finance and industry remain firmly entrenched in the cities of former West Germany. And even index-linked government employees have shown a reluctance to move lock, stock and barrel to the re-instated capital, leaving vacant many of the gleaming new offices built in the shadow of the seat of political power that is the Reichstag.
Former capital Bonn holds fast to major ministries, including defence and health, according to Andreas Meyer-Schwickerath, a Berlin-based managing director of the BCCG.
"Bonn still has more civil servants than Berlin," he says. "Most ministries have yet to relocate their headquarters here from Bonn or wherever else they are in Germany."
The unspoken inference is that both a power struggle and underlying mood of resentment continue to divide Berlin from the rest of the country, making the capital, for regular mass business travel purposes, something of a square peg in a round hole.
As a result, Meyer-Schwickerath suggests, the city has carved out for itself a variety of new revenue streams to alleviate nagging unemployment for re-unification and to supplement the burgeoning € 9 billion tourism industry that comes with Berlin's iconic status, historic and cultural appeal.
Chief among these are the media and hi-tech industries, many based in the futuristic new Potsdamer Platz development. The city's film, advertising and software sectors, in particular, have been experiencing rapid growth. These, in turn, supplement business tourism, a year-round calendar of major international exhibitions and events that boosts new shopping and entertainment outlets, and embraces every sector from the sciences to the arts.
An impressive 49,300 events, attracting nearly four million participants, were staged in Berlin during the first half of last year alone, in some measure justifying this most human of city's claim, to be Germany's most accomplished host.
At the same time, a steady increase in trade association business, plus meetings or events linked to the Reichstag, are attracting a growing flow of financiers, lawyers and political lobbyists from the UK.
Potentially, there is now enough business to sustain Lufthansa's flights from Docklands, says Karsten Benz, the airline's vice president sales and services, Europe.
Also optimistic about this fresh access and connectivity for UK business travellers is an impressive new network of hotels in a city where the number of high-end properties could formerly be counted on the fingers of one hand. In fact, there could already be more than enough five-star rooms to meet current demand.
"Right now, it's a big challenge for us to raise our rates," says Thies Sponholz, general manager of the newly fashionable Hotel de Rome, frequented by film stars, creative gurus, politicians and art dealers.
"Look around you - Berlin is hip and happening, but compared to most European capitals, deluxe hotels are a bargain here because there is an excess of rooms and business can be sporadic between major events," he says.
Painstakingly converted by Sir Rocco Forte from a gothic former bank building - its plush art deco minimalism and vast lavish interiors somehow redolent of Batman - Hotel de Rome shares the new heart of the city with the equally high-ranking Adlon and Regent. All three hotels are within easy walking distance of the Unter den Linden, Brandenburg Gate and Reichstag.
Given the expanded size of Berlin, hotel location and easy business access are key to attracting top players, says Sponholz.
Yet ever-radical Berlin, with its left-leaning local government, has ignored a vociferous local campaign to save the inner-city Tempelhof Airport.
Famous for its role in the Berlin Airlift of 60 years ago and just minutes from the city centre, Tempelhof was widely viewed as ideal for private jet and commuter traffic. Although the airport is currently operating at a loss, the city had received a number of offers from private enterprise to upgrade and develop the historic terminal for this purpose.
However, Tempelhof's fate has finally been sealed in favour of a masterplan already underway to develop the outer city Berlin-Schönefeld International Airport into a single major international gateway, to be renamed Berlin-Brandenburg International, by 2012.
The masterplan also calls for Tegel Airport, currently a primary airport and still reasonably close to the inner city, to be axed next year in favour of BBI.
Unlike elsewhere in Germany and despite a giant new rail terminus, Berlin's geographical location renders city centre to city centre connections time-consuming by high-speed rail. And despite currently pumping up its Private Jet services, Lufthansa is committed to Brandenburg, citing environmental and cost factors at Tempelhof and capacity limitations at Tegel for its ambivalence towards the closure of both.
True, the current lengthy road journey into town from Schönefeld will be shortened with improved transfer links. But supporters of Tempelhof, which is as much an historical monument as any in Berlin, argue that the city could be cutting off its nose to spite its face in not also providing, as with London City, a small, convenient airport for the movers and shakers it needs to cement its status as a capital city.
| FAST FACTS |
Climate
Winters are cold, with temperatures ranging between freezing and 3°C; summers are warm with daily temperatures ranging between 22°C and 30°C.
Contacts
British Chamber of Commerce, www.bccg.de
British Embassy Commercial Section, handelsabteilung.berlin@fco.gov.uk
UK Trade & Investment, www.tradeinvest.gov.uk
Tourism Information, www.visitBerlin.de
Passport
Validity minimum six months.
Telephone
International country code: + 49; area code: 30.
Time
GMT + 1.
Exchange Rate
€1.25=£1 (June 2008)
Public Holidays 2008-2009
October: 3, German Unification Day
December: 25, Christmas Day; 26, Boxing Day
January: 1, New Year
April: 10, Good Friday; 13, Easter Monday; 21, Ascension Day
May: 1, Labour Day/Whit Monday.
Emergency
Police 110; Fire and Ambulance 112. |
Airlines
Lufthansa flies twice daily on weekdays from London City to Berlin Tegel.
Winter departures are at 0940 and 1850, arriving at 1225 and 2050 respectively.
Inbound flights depart Tegel at 0830 and 1655, arriving at 0910 and 1655.
A third daily, midday, return flight is to be added this summer.
British Airways flies to Tegel from Heathrow.
Low-cost flights are provided by Air Berlin and Ryanair from Stansted; Air Berlin and Jet2.com from Manchester; Ryanair from East Midlands and easyJet from Luton, Liverpool, Bristol, Glasgow and Belfast.
Accommodation
Most international chains are present and this year the city's room count rises from 88,000 to 93,000 in nearly 600 hotels with four- and fivestar choice across a range of categories.
Airports
Tempelhof is approximately 10; Tegel, 20 and Schönefeld 40 minutes from the city centre.
An Airport Express rail service operates every 30 minutes, journey time 30 minutes, from Schönefeld to the Hauptbahnhof Main Station.
Meetings and exhibitions
This is Berlin's major industry. Alongside 160 hotels offering a variety of conference rooms there are six purpose-built convention centres and 120 other major venues. The International Congress Centre alone can seat up to 166,000 next to exhibition grounds with more than 30 halls. New venues opening this year include the O2 Arena with 59 entertainment suites and a 17,000 capacity.
Special events 2008
July 14
Exhibition at the Martin-Gropius-Bau (Good Prospects - Young German Photographers)
September 4-21
Musikfest Berlin 2008
Sept 24-Oct 4
International Literature Festival
November 6-9
JazzFest Berlin
Entertaining
All tastes are catered for across 12 separate districts. Quality, quantity and choice are the staples at breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Add an addictive café and bar life, plus the offerings of three opera houses, eight symphony orchestras, 150 theatres, 160 museums and countless art galleries.
Kreuzberg and Prenzlauer Berg are fashionable districts for ethnic and smart-casual nightlife, restaurants and boutiques. Mitte is for a younger crowd and Schöneberg, Kreuzberg and Prenzlauer Berg attract a gay crowd.
