Berlin – A Tourist Desaster-Zone?
It was a long flight from Japan. But who cares? Not Akiko. Not when she has landed in the coolest city in Europe. Even honourable father sent her to Germany with a paternal blessing. What is the Japanese for work? Arubaito. The Japanese for potency? Potentsu. The Japanese feel a kinship with the Germans; the Prussian virtues are also Asian. As for Berlin, it is a dream destination. The Japanese for Führer? Fyura.
Sadly, Akiko’s guidebook was out of date. It told her that there is a S-Bahn connection from Schönefeld. And it did not warn her that from the moment she leaves the airport building, she will be in a monolingual culture. No-one available to explain that she will have to walk through the summer rain to the railway station where she can catch a regional express twice an hour. Or that there is a bus – the driver of course does not speak English – going to Südkreuz. Where is Südkreuz? This is a question I have been asking myself too.
What will Akiko tell her father when she returns home? Not, I hope, the truth, which is that Berlin has become a tourist disaster-zone. The city is crowded, despite – or because – of the school holidays. More Berliners than usual are staying at home this year, but the big inflow is from Asia, America, Britain, Italy. There are 2 hour queues in front of Madame Tussauds, 90 minutes outside Sea-Life. And the foreigners are confused. For tourists Berlin is a city with two centres; mobility between east and west is essential to the Berlin experience. For the native Berliner cutting off west from east is not a serious problem; they rarely make the trip and a significant minority would probably be quite happy if the rail track between the two centres is permanently ripped up. Touris though need to travel easily to Hackescher Markt and then return to their Charlottenburg hostel. Well, there are buses of course with their famously sympathetic and helpful drivers, but not much else. One couple I met in Bahnhof Zoo this week were South Korean animal lovers (and not in the sense that they were looking for a dog to eat), trying to puzzle out how to get to the Tierpark Friedrichsfelde. I challenge any Tagesspiegel reader to explain this simply, in the age of Notfahrplan 2, to a non-German speaker. The eager spokesman from the Berliner Tourismusverband tells me that there will soon be English language flyers in the stations and English announcements over the loudspeakers. My encounters with Bahn-isch (“Zenk you für trevellink wiz deutsche Bahn”) suggest that this is not likely to contribute to general enlightment.
Many English youths have been returning to Berlin to recapture some of the spirit of the 2006 Weltmeisterschaft. You remember? Friendly faces, perfect but discreet organisation, a helpful bureaucracy: it was a turning point for Germany’s image abroad. English teenagers suddenly realised the Germans were just like them, only prettier. That achievement has long since been forgotten. From this week, Berlin is Apocalypse Now. If you arrive in a strange capital in a state of confusion, that uneasiness is likely to stay with you for the rest of the trip. And it’s not just the S-Bahn chaos. What about the protesting taxi drivers in Tegel? The general grumpiness in the city. In 2006, Berliners were proud to be host to the tourist masses. Now, they just want the Touris to go home rather than add to the mess.
Two strategies could ease the situation. First, the city has to show some warmth to the foreigners who are, after all, contributing to Berlin’s prosperity. It means acknowledging that the city has a bit of a problem (tourists are capable of recognising that – after all, the London Underground is not perfect), apologising, and smiling. I remember one EU summit in Berlin when the electricity broke down. The journalists were given little red hearts and Berlin bears and even that pathetic gesture helped soothe the anger. But the Stromausfälle keep on coming – blocking the Tegeltunnel last week and paralysing traffic. What is going to happen when Berlin hosts the Leichtathletik WM in August? Maybe it is just as well that Berlin did not win the Olympics. Its transport infrastructure, once one of the city’s great attractions, is now hopelessly out of date and hopelessly managed. Try taking one of the Ersatz-trains between Südkreuz and Gesundbrunnen – temporary presents from Stuttgart. There are rubbish bins, no graffiti, comfortable seats. Surely Berlin can do as well as the Schwaben?
Well, ok, at least part of the problem is that Berlin, unlike Stuttgart, has 60 billion euros of debts, not all of which are the fault of Senate spending policies. Plainly this is not the moment for grand investments. But it is the time for intelligent leadership. First, as with many crises stemming form Deutsche Bahn, an information crisis has made things worse. Second, travelling to work – or to tourist attractions – is an essential part of the economic life of any city. It requires daily improvisation and a public awareness that the political leadership is trying to identify and solve new problems.
The Senat has failed to find, or even look for, answers to the crisis. Nobody has set up an information unit, nobody has attempted to analyse the transport breakdown from the perspective of the whole city; its damaged image; its sense of well-being. Patients, for example, are finding it difficult to get to doctors appointments; nurses are arriving an hour late for their shifts. Should not the Senat be coming up with ideas? And telling us about them? Instead the view from the Red Rathaus seems to be that mistakes were made by S-Bahn managers, but that things are not as bad as Berliners think – because, thank God, there are school holidays. So we are treated to remarkable photographs of Klaus Wowereit on holiday on the Ku-damm and a very relaxed Ingeborg Junge-Reyer on her way to an Ostsee vacation (“ich hab’ eigentlich 3 Wochen Urlaub, bin jetzt nach einer Woche wieder da”; Danke Ingeborg!). Leadership sieht anders aus.
