Hambourg from Charlemagne to Chanel

Today, this international trade, which was once-upon-a-time limited to land or ocean travel, now includes the headquarters of French aviation leader Airbus and other companies such as Blohm & Voss. The IT and media industries have also chosen to plant their roots in Germany’s second-largest city. Hotel supply is growing thanks to this international presence and there is an infrastructure present to accommodate this influx of foreign visitors, notably the CCH Congress Centre. With so much international industry and traffic, one might expect this big town on the Elbe River to be grey and heavily polluted but reality proves the contrary. They have reduced their per-capita CO2 emissions by 15% since 1990 and have set objectives to reduce them by 40% by 2020 and by 80% by 2050. Their exemplary public transport system and policy against expanding the harbour (preferring to optimize already-existing space) has persuaded the European Commission to name Europe’s eight-largest city a “Green Capital” for 2011. The "Green Capital" has a hotel supply of 63 chain hotels registered as of 1 January of this year and they supply the city with 12,272 rooms. Nearly half of these rooms (49%) are found amongst four-star establishments. This illustrates the overwhelming preference Germans have for four-star establishments. Three-star and five-star establishments share the honour of second place because each category equally has a 13% share of room supply. However these rooms are concentrated in six establishments for the five-star category whilst the same percentage of rooms is dispersed amongst 13 establishments for the three-star category.Furthermore, one of Hollywood’s biggest production companies Warner Bros. also selected the Hanseatic City to be its representative in Germany. With an important business presence that goes beyond Blohm & Voss, Airbus, and the IT and media industries, the municipality of Hamburg provides an infrastructure for...