About FVW

FVW

FVW – the abbreviation stands for "Fremdenverkehrswirtschaft" (tourism industry) – is Germany's leading B2B magazine for the tourism industry, published in Hamburg by the fvw medien GmbH, a subsidiary of the dfv Mediengruppe. Founded in 1967 as a supplement to the Verkehrszeitung Wico, the title has grown over nearly six decades into the guiding medium of the German-speaking travel industry. Today it appears as fvw|TravelTalk – the biweekly print magazine formed from the merger of the fvw industry title and the TravelTalk sales weekly – complemented by daily digital news, the BizTravel business-travel magazine, the fvw|TravelTalk Kongress, the Travel Expo and the fvw Akademie training programs.

Overview

fvw|TravelTalk describes itself as the number one among the specialist media of the German-speaking tourism industry and the indispensable source of information for everyone who shapes and drives the sector – the decision-makers and doers of the industry. The magazine delivers exclusive news, well-founded analyses and practical background reporting – biweekly in print and daily in digital form – setting impulses across all channels, classifying topics with professional expertise and identifying trends early. Decision-makers, sales experts and market players rely on it for orientation and relevance.

The target readership comprises the specialists and executives of the entire travel business: the managers and decision-makers of tour operators, airlines and hotel companies; the owners and employees of travel agencies; and the travel managers in corporations – the professionals who design, sell and manage travel in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. More than 20 experienced journalists deliver daily exclusive news, analyses and in-depth background reports from the Hamburg editorial office – the largest editorial team in the industry's specialist press.

The publishing house's portfolio extends far beyond the flagship magazine: TravelTalk, the weekly magazine for travel sellers, with its practical sales focus; BizTravel, the magazine for business travel; the daily news portals fvw.de, traveltalk.de, biztravel.de and fvw.com; the TID, the tourism industry's contact database in online and print versions; and the fvw Akademie, responsible for the company's professional-training offerings. The events business – the fvw|TravelTalk Kongress, the leading annual specialist congress for the entire tourism industry in the German-speaking world (next held on 15 and 16 September 2026 in Leipzig), the Travel Expo and the industry awards – makes the publishing house the industry's convener as well as its chronicler.

History

fvw was founded in 1967 as a supplement to the Verkehrszeitung Wico – the abbreviation standing for "Fremdenverkehrswirtschaft," the tourism industry, the term that West Germany used for the business of travel. From this specialized beginning, the title grew with the post-war tourism boom: the rise of package tourism that brought the Mediterranean within reach of the German middle class, the charter-flight revolution, the expansion of the travel-agency network into every high street and the professionalization of the German travel industry into one of the world's largest outbound markets.

The fvw medien GmbH in Hamburg became the publishing house of the tourism industry's leading media: the fvw magazine as the largest publication under its roof, the TravelTalk weekly magazine for travel sellers and the BizTravel business-travel magazine. At the time of its last standalone annual report for the 2015 financial year, the company employed 100 people – the specialist publishing house as a mid-sized media enterprise, big enough to field the industry's largest editorial team.

The merger of fvw and TravelTalk into fvw|TravelTalk created the biweekly print flagship that combines the industry magazine's analytical depth with the sales magazine's practical focus – the "number one in the market" that serves decision-makers, sales experts and market players across Germany, Austria and Switzerland. The editorial leadership shaped the relaunched magazine's identity: editor-in-chief Alexander Krug, with colleagues contributing the large background stories – on DER Touristik's restructuring, on directing visitor flows against overtourism, on digital publishing for travel-sales experts and on the colorful mix for the industry's diverse readership – positioned the title as the industry's chronicler, impulse-generator and voice, the medium that classifies developments, initiates discussions and sets the pace.

Through the tourism industry's crises – from the aftermath of 9/11 to the 2008 financial crisis, from the Thomas Cook insolvency to the COVID-19 pandemic that brought global travel to a months-long standstill, and the FTI insolvency of 3 June 2024 that shook the German market – fvw|TravelTalk documented the industry's trials and recoveries, delivering what its editors call "the story behind the barren press release": the background reporting that explains what the announcements mean.

Content and Sections

The editorial program of fvw|TravelTalk follows the tourism industry's agenda. News coverage delivers the daily exclusive news from the German-speaking tourism world – the tour-operator strategies, airline developments, hotel news, cruise topics and travel-agency developments that move the industry, published daily on the portals and biweekly in the print magazine.

Analysis and background reporting provide the depth: the well-founded analyses and practical background pieces that classify developments, identify trends early and give decision-makers their orientation – from the DER Touristik restructuring with its hundreds of job losses to the overtourism debate and the question of how to direct visitor flows, from the FTI insolvency's aftermath for the affected companies to the AI transformation of the travel agency and the question of where the human factor remains indispensable.

The sales focus – inherited from TravelTalk – serves the travel sellers in the agencies: the "Counter" newsletter with the latest selling news, the practical topics of travel distribution and the stories of travel professionals and their individual paths – the content that motivates the readers behind the counters in challenging times.

The events coverage documents the industry's gatherings: the fvw|TravelTalk Kongress with its expert speakers and panel discussions, the Travel Expo and the industry awards – the platforms where the tourism business meets, networks and debates its future.

The podcast – TravelTalk@fvw, from the Hamburg video-streaming studio – extends the journalism into the audio and video formats: the expert talks on AI in the travel agency, the retrospectives one year after the FTI insolvency, and the live talks – "Brennpunkt," "Expertentalk," "Wir müssen reden" – on the industry's central topics, available a few days after broadcast as podcasts on fvw.de, Spotify, Apple Podcasts and other platforms, free of charge.

Publisher and Organization

fvw|TravelTalk is published by the fvw medien GmbH in Hamburg – the leading German specialist publishing house for the tourism and mobility industry, a subsidiary of the dfv Mediengruppe (Deutscher Fachverlag) in Frankfurt am Main. The editor-in-chief is Alexander Krug. The magazine appears biweekly in print and daily in digital form, with more than 20 journalists in the editorial team – the largest in the industry's specialist press.

Digital Presence

The digital home of fvw|TravelTalk is fvw.de, the portal that extends the biweekly print magazine into daily digital journalism. The site publishes daily news, analyses and background reports, complemented by the traveltalk.de, biztravel.de and fvw.com portals. The e-paper, the newsletters – including the "Counter" newsletter with the latest news in selling – and the video library (fvw.de/videos-live) serve the industry's information needs across formats, with subscription models from the one-month trial to the 24-month subscription.

The TravelTalk@fvw podcast – the audio extension of the Hamburg studio's live talks – is available on fvw.de, Spotify, Apple Podcasts and other platforms, free of charge: the expert talks, analyses and interviews from the video-streaming studio, now accessible anywhere and anytime. The social media channels carry the brand into the networks where the tourism industry discusses its future.

With its 1967 founding, its biweekly print rhythm and daily digital news, its position as the German-speaking tourism industry's number one specialist medium and its Hamburg publishing house in the dfv Mediengruppe, fvw|TravelTalk remains the guiding medium of the travel business – from the Fremdenverkehrswirtschaft supplement to the multimedia industry platform, from the print biweekly to the daily digital news, from Hamburg to the world's destinations.