Angela Reynolds, of Fager’s hotel group, has been working on partnerships with other local business to provide unique experiences for travelers seeking experiences outside of the typical beach and boardwalk most come to our area for, in an attempt to broaden the reach to a new crop of visitors.
This week as part of a trip put together with Capitol Region USA, a German concern that promotes foreign travel, a group of well respected German travel writers were able to take a unique tour of our area. .
Mario Arnold, “spelled like Mr. Schwarzenegger,” as he said, was one of the group of writers who spent the early part of the week participating in outdoor excursions aimed at bringing more attention to the region as both a short excursion and destination option for Europeans considering a trip to America.
Arnold writes for REISE&PREISE, a quarterly travel magazine published in Germany, Switzerland and Austria. Together with colleagues, Johann Legner of Lausitzer Rundschau, a regional German newspaper, Daniela Kebel a freelancer for multiple travel magazines and websites and Annabelle Hirsch who writes for Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, a Frankfurt daily the group reaches over 750,000 people in those countries.
Talkative and a bit exuberant after an hour-long paddle board tour, Arnold showed no signs of being ready to let up while Legner, a three decade veteran of the daily newspaper business in Berlin, had already repaired to the groups rooms for a massage courtesy of the hotel.
Legner himself was more focused on the on the cultural aspects of the trip and had gone ahead of as his colleagues who had disappeared around an outcropping along the Assawoman Bay heading for Seacrets.
The pitch is, essentially, why not expand a visit to the nation’s capital with a trip to the easily reachable Eastern Shore and see a part of the country not on the standard American trip itinerary.
By focusing on the leisure-athletics aspect of a trip to Ocean City both the travelers, and with any luck their readers, will get the sense that there is as much or more to do on the adventure side of tourism here as there is to do with the laying-around-sunning side.
After spending the beginning of the weekend across the bay touring Washington D.C., the group made the trip to Berlin spending Sunday evening as the guests of the Atlantic Hotel and moving to The Edge, in Ocean City for the last night of their trip..
The group experienced a whirlwind tour including Monday’s kayak tour sponsored by Ayer’s Creek Adventures followed by lunch and a paddle board tour sponsored by What-SUP Stand Up Paddle. Before they returned home Tuesday evening the group would have two more kayak tours and several meals to take note of before writing it all — or at least much of it — up for publication in the coming weeks.
While it is unclear how often they will use the word “exotic” to describe their American off-the-beaten-path experience, the group will at least have the opportunity to try our different variations of “Spass” — German for fun — when they write their reviews.