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Oregon direct air link could lure visitors from Germany

Oregon’s re-entry into the world of transcontinental aviation this week will come none too soon for the state’s ailing economy. But the amount of lift the global tie can provide is far from certain.

DYLAN RIVERA OregonLive.com.

German airline Lufthansa’s first daily nonstop passenger flight from Frankfurt International Airport will land Monday at Portland International Airport, giving rise to state hopes for new sources of tourism — one of the most readily boosted sources of economic activity — and export business.

A report commissioned by Portland International Airport estimated an economic benefit of $60 million a year, counting only the airlines’ direct spending and some expenditures by new tourists. And the nonstop service already has bolstered Oregon’s identity among the German travel media and in tour operators’ catalogs.

But the actual payload will depend on tourism trends and economic factors yet to play out — some within Oregon’s control, many not. The suffering Oregon and German economies, along with the dampening effect of war in Iraq on an airline industry already under siege, increases the challenge for government and business leaders as they try to reap economic gains from the new flights.

The Lufthansa service inarguably builds a better bridge between Portland and one of the world’s richest markets, Europe. It also helps erase the economic-development setback of losing Delta Air Lines’ hub to Asia two years ago.

The new flights also indisputably give Portland the visibility that comes with appearing on Lufthansa’s U.S. route maps, where it joins a list of much bigger U.S. metro areas. And they directly link Portland with the biggest airport in continental Europe — Lufthansa’s Frankfurt hub for its massive flight network, ranging from Hong Kong to Johannesburg, South Africa.

"To be a leading business center as a metropolitan area, you need to have connections globally, and air travel is the best way to do that," said Scott Anderson, senior economist with Wells Fargo & Co., based in Minneapolis.

How well Oregon and Lufthansa market the state will do much to determine just how many more tourists visit Oregon, according to state tourism officials. Germans would seem to be receptive, considering commonalities between the two regions.

The Oregon Tourism Commission and hoteliers are backing a proposed 1-cent-per-$1-dollar tax on hotel-motel revenue to cover an expansion in tourism promotion. The tax would add $7 million to the commission’s $3 million budget, which lottery revenue funds. Of the total, $1 million would be used to market Oregon to Europeans while highlighting the new service to Frankfurt.

The proposal is stalled in the Legislature, where disagreement over how cities could use the hotel-motel tax revenues has yet to be resolved.

"It’s not time to coast and rest on our laurels," said Todd Davidson, executive director of the Tourism Commission. "Instead, it’s an opportunity to capitalize on the goodwill and solid relationship that we do have (with Germany)."

German visitors awaited Hoopla in store for this week officially kicks off Portland’s higher profile in Germany.

The fanfare includes a joint dinner appearance by Lufthansa chief executive JurgenWeber and incoming CEO Wolfgang Mayrhuber, who takes the company’s helm in June. Accompanied by Lufthansa’s top corporate travel clients from Germany, Mayrhuber will speak to a breakfast crowd of business leaders, visit Nike’s headquarters in Beaverton, taste wine at Willamette Valley vineyards and toast top Oregon travel industry officials at a formal dinner on Friday.

The timing could be better.

The U.S.-led invasion of Iraq has driven a wedge between the United States and Europe — especially Germany and France — and risks dampening the use of the new air service.

"I want to go to America when it’s peaceful," said Florian Poser, 23, of Munich. "I think right now everyone’s nervous in America."

German and U.S. tour operators report that travelers have not cancelled flights to the United States, as they did just after the Sept. 11 attacks, said Billie Rathbun-Moser, international program director for the Oregon Tourism Commission.

Many travelers used to make summer travel plans in the winter, but in recent years they have bought their tickets in the spring, Rathbun-Moser said. The conflict looks likely to prompt travelers to further delay buying tickets, perhaps until May, she said, when the war might have ended.

"There’s a chance that we’ll have an excellent summer season if the war doesn’t go on too long," Rathbun-Moser said.

Oregon has amenities Many of Germany’s 82 million citizens will never visit Oregon. In any country, international travel appeals to an elite group. And even among most in the group, Oregon will not be the first choice.

But German travel and tourism professionals said the Beaver State can tout many amenities, especially in the outdoors, that entice select, experienced German travelers.

Most Germans, raised on Disney images and movies shot in New York and Los Angeles, yearn for a firsthand look at those premier tourist destinations, the tourism and travel professionals said.

Sandy beaches and a certain animated mouse, for example, make Florida a top location for German tourists. Two-week vacation packages offering round-trip air fare and a rental car for $500 per person make Disney World an affordable destination for working-class families.

"Ever since the minute you were born you heard of New York, Florida and Disney," said Rita Hille, managing director of Wiechmann Tourism Service in Frankfurt. "If you’re going to the U.S. for the first time, it’s something you can connect with." Wiechmann Tourism Service has marketed Oregon in Germany since Oregon and Washington hired the firm to do so in 1997.

Once Germans have had their beach-and-big-city fix, they’re ready for a more adventuresome American experience. Tourists who have enough money to venture to the United States several times are eager to see the country they heard about from childhood stories about Native Americans.

Karl May, a native of Dresden, Germany, wrote books in the late 19th century about Native American tribes, cowboys and pioneers that have been staple reading for generations of German preteens — much like the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy has been in the United States.

This month’s edition of Lufthansa magazine, featuring Oregon, recounts the Klamath Indian legend of the creation of Crater Lake.

"Germans are nutty about Indians," said Paul DeYoung, director of international programs at Reed College in Southeast Portland. "They have been raised with an image of Indians as being close to the land, fair and just."

Aside from the inaugural trip this week, Lufthansa will stage several tours to show off Oregon to German travel agency executives, tour operators and reporters later this year.

Euro gains in value

A 30-foot-tall replica of the euro symbol glows electric blue in front of the European Central Bank’s headquarters in downtown Frankfurt. It’s a bold beacon of the currency, which has gained 22 percent in value against the U.S. dollar in the past two years.

Underneath the bank building, young professionals adorned in the latest fashions from Milan, Italy, and Paris crowd into Living, a trendy bar where they toast one another with round after round of elaborate $9 mixed drinks.

German affluence spells opportunity for tourism-hungry Oregon.

The German tourism segment attracted to Oregon looks particularly lucrative and reliable, German travel professionals say.

Though Oregon lures far fewer German tourists than Florida, interest has remained steady in the face of economic and political uncertainty. While the number of U.S.-bound Germans declined by 28 percent between 2000 and 2002, German tourism in Florida tumbled by more than 30 percent in the same period while remaining about even at approximately 25,000 in Oregon, Hille said. The latest number for Florida tourism was 304,000 travelers in 2001.

State Tourism Commission officials said German tourists have spent an average of about $90 per person per day in the United States and probably more in Oregon.

The nationwide decline in German tourism, generally attributed more to a weak German economy than to Sept. 11 terror fears, illustrates the wealth of those who venture to Oregon, Hille said.

The German unemployment rate soared between 2000 and 2002, and the economic pinch prompted middle-class Germans to head less often to Florida, Hille said. But some travelers can take overseas vacations even in tough times, and those more wealthy, experienced travelers are the Germans who have continued to fly to Oregon, she said.

"Some people will go where they want to go, regardless of the economy," Hille said.

A recent survey by the German magazine America Journal confirms Oregon’s high regard among travel-savvy Germans. The 40,000-circulation travel magazine recently polled its readers, asking which U.S. destinations they are most interested in visiting next.

Oregon ranked second behind Texas, which spends millions of dollars in marketing muscle and boasts a worldwide reputation for cowboys and ranches.

"This tells me that Germans who really know America also like what they know about Oregon," Hille said.

The March-April issue of America Journal features a picture of Mount Hood with a caption that discusses Der Pazifische Nordwesten.

Scenes aimed at tourists Cyclists in yellow and bright blue Spandex ride the rolling hills, past thousands of rows of meticulously manicured wine grape vines. Nearby pubs carefully pour steins of wheat beer for thirsty customers from all over the world. Families and couples stroll along hiking and bicycle trails carefully placed away from car traffic.

The scene from southwest Germany’s renowned Mosel River valley wine region just as easily could have taken place in Yamhill County.

Tastes and interests common to Germany and Oregon enhance the chances of attracting more German tourists.

Both regions are heavy with nature enthusiasts who yearn for downhill skiing, fishing, forest solitude and hiking. They also teem with connoisseurs of boutique wine and beer who take pride in the world-class versions of both products from their regions.

Better yet, compared with Germany, it’s easier to enjoy the outdoors in Oregon. The Alps of Southern Germany may be renowned, but their crowded slopes leave skiers waiting in long lift lines. Golfing in Germany is still an elite sport restricted to exclusive and expensive clubs.

Some German hikers shun the Alps.

"I would maybe go to Scandinavia, and that’s what a lot of people my age would like to do," said Mareike Buck, 30, a zoologist who writes environmental impact statements in Hamburg.

Like many Germans, Buck is acutely aware of her country’s congestion. Germany has 82 million people occupying about the same land mass as Montana. Since few areas of her country are sparsely populated, Buck ventures to Sweden or New Zealand for hiking and adventure.

Isabella Beier, 28, an insurance company employee, likes U.S. National Parks such as Yosemite and Death Valley.

"You could look at animals and they are not so shy in national parks," Beier said during a recent subway commute.

Beier reads outdoor magazines and books to learn about new vacation destinations. She’s already hiked in South America, Iceland, Australia and Italy.

She had never heard of Oregon and could barely pronounce it: Oh-ray-gun?

But presented with a picture of Cannon Beach, her face flashed with recognition.

"It looks like Southern Chile, but it’s more green," she said.

Dylan Rivera: 503-221-8532; [email protected]

http://www.oregonlive.com/business/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/business/104894269655400.xml

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Flights will mean convenience, if not new business

DYLAN RIVERA Oregonlive.com

It’s clear that new nonstop passenger flights between Portland and Frankfurt, Germany, will make Europe suddenly more accessible for business travelers. It’s also clear that they will not prompt an immediate surge in exports to Germany.

Any effect is likely to be more gradual, as some additional businesses begin to consider Europe an export destination, said Craig Burk, European trade development officer for the Oregon Economic and Community Development Department.

Europe is a mature, developed marketplace, and several nations can tout average personal incomes that are as high or higher than those in the United States.

But selling new consumer goods into those markets won’t necessarily be easy, Burk warned. The 15 member nations of the European Union already have a host of homegrown high-tech, agricultural and industrial companies posing cutthroat competition, he said.

The new flights’ first main effect on Oregon business could be simple convenience. Beaverton-based Nike committed to spend $2 million on tickets for the first year of air service, largely because its employees will be able to reach its European headquarters near Amsterdam, the Netherlands, more easily.

Even small companies can capitalize on the convenience.

One, Eugene-based Electrical Geodesics, is typical of small medical-device firms that — unlike companies in industries that grow domestically before exporting — compete internationally from the start. The 30-employee Electrical Geodesics started exporting upon its founding in 1994.

About 40 percent of the firm’s sales are international, and about one-fifth of total sales are to Europe, said Ann Bunnenberg, president and sales manager. Making sure a customer understands how to use a $100,000 brain scanner requires face-to-face contact, even if that means flying over an ocean.

Now, Bunnenberg’s staff looks forward to using the flights for its 20 or so annual trips to Europe.

"People are scarce here, and we ask them to travel a lot," Bunnenberg said. "That ability to save the wear and tear on people by being able to go direct makes a big difference."

http://www.oregonlive.com/business/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/business/104894273955400.xml

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