As we head into the holiday season, we might find our travel plans impacted by COVID-regulations. How are the travel and tourism industries in the United States and Europe affected by the pandemic? How is this sector adapting - and what might be the lasting implications of the coronavirus crisis? Are new forms of (local) tourism emerging that might outlast the current situation?
1014 and ACG discussed these questions with Ricarda Lindner, Regional Manager for the Americas and Director of the U.S. Office of the German National Tourist Office, and Guy Martin (ACG Journalism Fellow 1991), Senior Correspondent for Conde Nast Traveler and Senior Contributor at Forbes.
THIS CONVERSATION IS PART OF A SERIES CO-HOSTED BY 1014 AND THE AMERICAN COUNCIL ON GERMANY. VIEW ALL RECORDINGS OF THE SERIES HERE.
Ricarda Lindner joined the Marketing Team of the German National Tourist Office New York in 1998 and took the helm as Director in 2008. In her current position, Ricarda is responsible for the Regional Management of the Americas/Israel with offices and representations in New York, Los Angeles, Toronto, Sao Paulo, Mexico City, Buenos Aires, and Tel Aviv. She has been instrumental in opening the Latin American Market for the German National Tourist Office.
Together with her team, Ricarda has been very successful in promoting Germany as an attractive travel destination to Americans—with a track record of eight years of continuous growth in overnight stays and revenue.
Prior to moving to the US in 1998, Ricarda received her Master’s degree in Economics with a focus on Finance and Marketing in Wiesbaden, Germany and in Nice, France. In 1994, she completed a three-year Professional Management Trainee Program at Frankfurt Airport.
Fluent in German, Guy Martin is at work on a history of the East German secret police, or Stasi, for Alfred A. Knopf publishers in New York. He has written for Conde Nast Traveler, Town and Country, Garden and Gun, The New Yorker, The (London) Observer, Paris Match, The New York Times Book Review, Rolling Stone, Men’s Journal, Field and Stream, and the (London) Sunday Telegraph magazine. He is a John J. McCloy Journalism Fellow of the American Council on Germany and in 2013 received the Best Foreign Travel Story award from the Society of American Travel Writers.