European City Tourism Organisations - How City Tourism Organisations in Europe Prepare Themselves for Rough Times in Saturated Markets

City Tourism Organisations are nowadays facing more difficultconditions than ever before. Guest surveys and statistics haveshown that tourist behaviour has changed dramatically in recentyears. On the other hand, chain hotels pop up in the East and Westnumerously and start feeling the cold wind of stagnation. Severalstrategies were chosen to come up with these trends. Some CTOs tendto rely on their own, but most of them want to cooperate with otherCTOs, considered as competitors before. Pathfinder cities foundedEuropean Cities Tourism (ECT), with the initial goal ofstrengthening their position towards the European institutions. Butprotecting the interests of more than onehundred cities - small andbig ones, classical tourism hot spots and newly re-emerged citiesin all directions and with different target groups - is very hard.ECT is expanding its acitivities, but how will it evolve? Up tonow, CTOs and hotel chains have co-existed without collaborating orstanding in each others way, but future developments suggest closercooperation. This book discusses the current situation of hotelchains and CTOs, focusing on the attitude of the last-named towardsnecessary changes.