VISIT BMW WELT AT ITB BERLIN

VISIT BMW WELT AT ITB BERLIN FROM MARCH 11-15 IN THE "BAYERNHALLE" HALL 6.2. B
11/03/2009

The ITB Berlin is the leading trade fair of the international tourism industry.
The combination of trade exhibition, public exhibition and the biggest professional convention worldwide attracts tens of thousands of visitors, exhibitors and media representatives every year.

This year again you will find the stand of the BMW Welt at the ITB Berlin, the most successful tourism trade fair worldwide, once again in the "Bayernhalle" 6.2. B, from 11th to 15th March.
In the name of BMW Group we would like to invite you to the press conference "From Zero to 3 million visitors", which is why BMW Welt became meanwhile the second most visited sight in Munich. Date: 12th March 2009 from 10:30 to 11:30. The conversation with the press will take place in the context of ITB Berlin in the beer garden of Bavaria tourism, in hall 6.2. B. Afterwards we are looking forward to vivid discussions during a shared Bavarian "Brotzeit".

The updated press release concerning the ITB and further information to BMW Welt you can find here as well for downloading.


The BMW Welt Experience at ITB 2009

The popular visitor attraction in the Olympic Park in Munich is once again offering diversity and variety for the whole family in 2009.

Munich. The BMW Welt complex - consisting of BMW Welt, the BMW Museum and the BMW Plant - provides a fascinating diversity of themes in one place and creates a brand experience that is unique throughout the world. This year, BMW Welt is once again offering plenty of innovations and a wide-ranging programme of events.

January saw the start of the six lunchtime events to select the winner of the BMW Welt Jazz Award. The climax of this new cultural format will be the finals on 4 April. Since February, there have been additional newly designed events and guides through BMW Welt - with the "Mobility Tour" and "Family Time" - that particularly meet the needs of families. And to see out the year 2009 in truly traditional style, there will once again be concerts featuring top artists in BMW Welt every Advent Sunday. In 2009, apart from the permanent exhibition, the BMW Museum will also be showing the BMW Concept Cars and a small exhibition to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the BMW 700. In addition, the BMW Z1 created by A.R. Penck in the world-famous BMW Art Car Collection will also be moving into the BMW Museum. Thanks to the new Production Mile, the BMW Plant will once again be able to grant 150,000 visitors a glimpse into all the BMW production areas.

The re-opening of the BMW Museum in June 2008 marked the fulfilment of a dream that started with the concept for BMW Welt, the gateway to the brand. This is where the BMW Plant tours start, and the BMW Museum opposite is connected directly with BMW Welt via a bridge. With BMW Welt, the BMW Plant and the BMW Museum, visitors can experience every facet of the brand. Here, the authenticity and continuity, brand history, innovative production and technologies of BMW become tangible.

BMW Welt. One of Munich's most popular visitor attractions.

In just a very short time, BMW Welt has become one of the most popular tourist attractions in Munich. Since its opening in October 2007, three million people have visited BMW Welt, which takes it to second place in the list of Munich's most visited sights. With its unique features - the striking double cone and flying cloud roof - this unusual structure is one of the first creations in a new generation of communication buildings for the 21st century. At the same time, BMW Welt is harmoniously integrated into the context of the Olympic Park architecture and the existing BMW buildings. The open architecture and complex, transparent glass facade allow lots of light into the interior space and open up the building to its environment.

The recipe for the success of this experience is based on its wide-ranging diversity, regularly changing exhibitions and central themes. BMW Welt thus combines technology, design and innovation with lifestyle, dynamism and culture, acting as a public space for fascinating encounters and dialogues. In 2009, BMW Welt will once again be thrilling its guests with its widely diverse programme of events.

BMW Welt 2009. Offering a wide range of different events.

Since January, the events to select the winners of the BMW Welt Jazz Award 2009, entitled "The Art of Piano Trio" have been held every fortnight, on Sundays from 11 a.m. to 1.30 p.m.. This new, highly regarded competition is being organised for the first time this year, and has captured the imagination of both the public and the trade press. The finals and presentation of the award will take place on 4th April, when the two finalists, selected by a highly qualified jury, will compete against each other. The winning trio will receive prize money totalling € 10,000 and an exclusive winners' cup. In addition, there will once again be classical concerts in BMW Welt on the four Sundays of Advent. The popular Advent concerts have been enhancing Munich's cultural scene in the pre-Christmas period since 2007.

In addition to regularly changing exhibitions of BMW's technology, design and innovation, visitors are attracted by the unusual, prize-winning architecture of the building itself. The guided tours each day are very popular.

The Junior Campus at BMW Welt will also be offering new services in 2009, in addition to its extremely popular workshops, so that it can meet future demands and the needs of families in particular. Since February, the Junior Campus at BMW Welt has focussed completely on families on the first Sunday in each month. The special Family Time activities allow parents to experience the theme of mobility with their children. In the Junior Campus, which was designed specially for young visitors, parents can visit the "Discovering Mobility" workshop with their children for the first time in these days, or get to know BMW Welt in every detail in two different tours. Whilst parents take a BMW Welt Compact Tour, the "Mobility Tour" invites children and young people aged 7 to 13, after a research trip of the Junior Campus, to go on an exciting tour through BMW Welt, accompanied by trained teaching staff. The tour focuses on general mobility matters, such as methods of transport, covering distances, safety on the roads, pioneering technologies and environmental factors.

BMW Welt. A superb culinary experience.

Those who would like to round off a long day of fascinating impressions with an outstanding culinary experience are in just the right place at BMW Welt. BMW Welt is definitely worth a culinary detour. Eduard Dimant, Head Chef of the Club Restaurant in BMW Welt, was named "Newcomer of the Year" by the readers of "Der Feinschmecker", the trade journal for gourmets, in December 2008. The combination of pioneering architecture and superb catering invites visitors to experience the world of BMW with all their senses. Two restaurants, a bistro and a coffee bar run by the world-famous Viennese restaurant and catering company DO & CO offer opportunities for wining and dining at the highest level.
Another popular meeting place in summer is the spacious outside terrace of the Restaurant International, with its views across Munich's Olympic Park.

BMW Museum. Thematic time lines show the innovative power of the BMW brand.

Ever since it opened in 1973, the "Museum bowl", as it is known because of its exterior design, has been not only the home of the BMW Museum, but also one of the city's prime architectural landmarks. Following its redesign and re-opening in June 2008, the directly adjoining flat structure of the BMW corporate head offices has been added to the "Museum dish". It has thus been possible to quintuple the size of the exhibition space to 5,000 m2. A system of apparently weightless ramps reaching dynamically into the room leads to a theme complex with a total of 25 exhibition areas. Visitors move along this pathway as if they were on a street, walking along the paved pathways of a great city.

The new exhibition concept does not focus on history as a completed chronology, but instead develops themes in the form of time lines, which start in the past, lead into the present and offer glimpses of the future. Different media and production styles highlight these time lines and allow them to be experienced with all of the five senses. 120 original BMW exhibits from the last 90 years of BMW history demonstrate this very clearly, and invite visitors on a personal journey through time. Great favourites with the public that can now be viewed in the BMW Museum include the Isetta, the BMW 2002, the R32 motorcycle, the BMW 328 and the 507, and also the H2R record-breaker. Cars, motorcycles, racing vehicles and aeroplane engines demonstrate the brand's product diversity, continuity and innovative power. To meet the high international standards of the BMW Museum, many exhibits have been comprehensively and accurately restored. At the end of the tour, visitors arrive at the topmost platform of the "Museum dish", where they are greeted by yet another synthesis of architecture and media production techniques - a panoramic projection across the inner wall of the bowl. In the unusual space, without columns, with a wall surface that is 120 m long and up to 6 m high, specially produced films are shown as a 360° panoramic view.

The museum's educational service - "Teaching with the BMW Museum" - concentrates on programmes for schools consisting of themed tours followed by an artistic and practical programme section. Factual knowledge takes second place to a wide range of different learning processes. On this basis, the Museum offers schools and children's and youth's groups guided tours and workshops for 6- to 13-year-olds and 14- to 18-year-olds.

BMW Museum 2009. Changing exhibitions, special presentations and new Art Cars.

The current temporary exhibition shows BMW Concept Cars on a scale never before seen by the public. The exhibits, dating from 1951 to 2006, are unique and bear witness to pioneering innovations in terms of design, materials, drive technologies and safety. They stand apart from any series developments, give shape to new ideas and visions and have often proved to be the stimulus for the kind of individual mobility that comes the day after tomorrow. Because of its great popularity, this exhibition will continue to be presented in the Museum in 2009, with a number of new exhibits, including motorcycles, being added.

Furthermore, there will be at least one new special exhibition in 2009. From the spring of 2009, a small exhibition of vehicles in the Museum foyer will remind visitors of the 50th anniversary of the BMW 700. With this model, BMW set off on the road towards its successful automobile business; it thus impressively demonstrates BMW's ability to develop compact, powerful, contemporary automobiles. With its Italian charm, the 700 Coupé summed up the tastes and attitudes of the time exactly. After the Coupé, the Saloon was presented in September 1959 at the IAA motor show. Demand soared, and people were happy to accept delivery dates months away. By the time it was phased out in 1965, this car had become BMW's top-selling vehicle to date.

In addition, the compact Sport Coupé marked the beginning of an unmatched career in motor racing for BMW after the Second World War,. Great heroes of motor racing - including Hans Stuck senior, Jacky Ickx, Alexander von Falkenhausen, Hubert Hahne and Heinrich Eppelein - became first-time winners with the car.

As the home of the BMW Art Car Collection, the Museum is being presented with a significant addition in the middle of February 2009. The BMW designed by A.R. Penck reflects Penck's unmistakeable style, combining abstract figures and symbols. He uses matchstick men and graphic images that are reminiscent of cave paintings, Asian calligraphy and graffiti, and which have earned him the title of "the cave-painter of the Post-Modern movement".

From April to September 2009, the BMW Museum will be presenting a very special type of art work: sections from the massive installation created by the American Robin Rhode, who left coloured tyre tracks on a white background using a BMW Z4 - an expression of individual mobility as part of an artistic interpretation of sheer driving pleasure.

BMW Plant. Passion and cutting-edge technology.

In the BMW home Plant in Munich, visitors can experience the fascination of modern automobile construction at close quarters. The new BMW Production Mile runs through a total of twelve halls, covering all areas of production: press shop, body shop, paint shop, engine construction, the production of the interiors and seats, and assembly. Visitors can witness the unique logistics and precise attention to detail here. 10,000 parts from all over the world have to meet up with each other here at the right time and in the right place. This incredibly complex process takes place at this historic BMW location in a harmonious interplay between man and machines. The factory tour starts with the perfectly coordinated "robots' dance", which amazes visitors with the sheer aesthetic appeal of the technology. The tolerance level in body shell construction is a tenth of a millimetre, reaching a thousandth of a millimetre in engine construction.
Visitors will then see the majority of the 9,000 or so employees from 50 countries working in assembly, where a completely individual automobile, tailored to the customer's wishes, is put together. Because apart from fleet orders, the BMW Munich Plant produces on average of only two to four identical vehicles a year, even though a new BMW is created every minute here.

BMW factory tour. 1.5 million Visitors and eight million automobiles.

There have been factory tours for almost as long as there has been a BMW home Plant in Munich - for almost 90 years. In the early years, the tours tended to be run on a more spontaneous, flexible basis, but the factory tours became more official in the 1950s, mainly for employees, to start with. The earliest source in the BMW Archive to refer to factory visits dates from 1962. It was only at the beginning of the 70s that the Plant began to count the number of visitors, and in these early years of records, the number of guests each year was between 30,000 and 33,000. From the end of the 80s, this number was supplemented by the visitors who collected their new cars "ex factory" in the small delivery warehouse in Freimann, for which BMW Welt was created in 2007. The mainly US guests increased the average number of visitors to 35,000 - 40,000 a year. So the maximum capacity for visits to the Plant was soon filled, and requests for visits had to be submitted months in advance.

Since the opening of BMW Welt in October 2007 and the redesign of the factory tour, the main Plant has been welcoming 150,000 visitors a year - and has far more requests for visits. It is recommended that visitors book six months in advance. In a conservative estimate, the workers at the BMW Plant in Munich have had over 1.5 million visitors looking over their shoulders as they have built around eight million cars - more than any other BMW Plant.

Guided tours through the BMW Welt experiences can be booked by telephone each day from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. by calling: +49 (0) 180 2 118822 (6 cents per call from German landlines, other rates may apply from mobiles) or by mailing BMW Welt InfoService: e-mail: infowelt@bmw-welt.com.

Further information about the wide range of facilities can be obtained from: www.bmw-welt.com