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Berlin’s tourism promotion agency appears headed for another leadership search only three months after Jürgen Amann took office. Behind the personnel drama lies a bigger question: who can successfully market Germany’s capital at a time when international visitor numbers are slipping, political expectations are rising, and the tourism chief must navigate one of Europe’s most complicated destination-management jobs?
BERLIN —Berlin’s tourism industry has been shaken by reports that Dr. Jürgen Amann, the recently appointed managing director of visitBerlin, is leaving after barely three months in the job.
The Berliner Morgenpost reported Tuesday that Amann has signed a termination agreement with the chairman of visitBerlin’s supervisory board, Oliver Schumacher, with the agreement still requiring formal consideration by the board.
The development is no longer an isolated media report. German news outlets have separately reported that Amann is departing following big differences over the future direction of visitBerlin and criticism of his management style.
The timing could hardly be more awkward.
Amann was selected in December 2025 from what visitBerlin said was a field of well over 100 candidates. He formally started on June 1, 2026, succeeding Burkhard Kieker, the highly visible tourism executive who had helped shape Berlin’s international tourism strategy for 17 years.
Amann therefore did not serve from December, as the chronology can sometimes suggest. He was appointed in December 2025 but took office only on June 1, 2026. Three months later, the succession process appears to be back at square one.
A €15 Billion Visitor Economy
This is much more than a personnel dispute inside a tourism bureau.
Berlin is Germany’s most important urban tourism destination and one of Europe’s major city destinations. In 2025, the capital recorded 12.4 million visitors and 29.4 million overnight stays. Approximately 41 percent of overnight stays came from international markets.
Tourism’s economic footprint is enormous.
According to a Tourism Satellite Account prepared by DIW Econ, visitors generated €15.1 billion in tourism consumptionand €8.4 billion in direct and indirect gross value added. Approximately 224,800 peopledepend directly or indirectly on Berlin’s visitor economy — equivalent to 10.3 percent of employment in the city.
That makes the position Amann is vacating one of Germany’s most consequential destination-management jobs. It also makes leadership instability particularly problematic.
Berlin Tourism Is Losing Some Momentum
Berlin remains extraordinarily attractive, but its tourism machine has not completely recovered its pre-pandemic volume.
The city registered 34 million overnight stays and 14 million visitors in 2019. In 2025 there were 29.4 million overnight stays and 12.4 million visitors. The first half of 2026 brought another warning.
Berlin received 5.9 million visitors, roughly level with the previous year, but overnight stays dropped 2.7 percent to 13.6 million. More significantly for an organisation responsible for international destination marketing, foreign visitor numbers fell 4.1 percent and international overnight stays declined 6.4 percent.
Berlin therefore does not simply need someone who can administer a tourism organisation. It needs a global salesman or saleswoman, diplomat, political operator, destination strategist and corporate leader rolled into one.
What the Next visitBerlin Chief Actually Has to Do
The division Amann inherited was specifically designated “Destination Marketing & Commercial.”
Together with co-managing director Sabine Wendt, the leadership is responsible for worldwide tourism and convention marketing, maintaining and developing the Berlin brand, destination management and corporate development. Wendt, who has been managing director since January 2024, oversees destination management and organizational development, while Amann’s portfolio covered destination marketing and commercial activities.
That distinction matters.
The next executive will have to restore growth in international markets while working alongside Wendt rather than replacing her.
He or she must strengthen Berlin in the United States, Britain and established European markets while exploiting growing demand from markets including China and India. The executive must work with airlines, tour operators, hotels, Messe Berlin, congress organizers, cultural institutions, restaurants, attractions and Berlin’s 12 districts.
And Berlin wants something more complicated than simply “more tourists.”
Its official strategy calls for sustainable, city-compatible and higher-quality tourism, balancing economic benefits with residents’ quality of life and distributing visitor spending beyond the traditional tourism hotspots. Climate resilience, digitalization and sustainability are increasingly part of the mandate.
In other words, Berlin needs someone who can sell the city internationally without appearing to sell it out to tourism.
The Amann Warning Signs Predated Berlin
The most serious questions surrounding Amann concern events before he arrived in the capital.
In July, the Tagesspiegel reported that Cologne’s municipal audit office was examining expenses from Amann’s tenure at KölnTourismus, including company-credit-card transactions, travel, invitations and tickets. At the time, Amann confirmed he had received questions from KölnTourismus and said he would respond within the required deadline. The supervisory board of visitBerlin publicly said it expected a rapid and complete clarification.
Those allegations should be described as allegations unless and until the relevant audit findings are officially published or otherwise independently documented.
But another issue deserves scrutiny. Amann’s departure from Cologne itself had already been unusual.
KölnTourismus announced in February that its supervisory board had appointed longtime internal executive Stephanie Kleine Klausing to succeed him and that Amann’s contract would terminate early by mutual agreement on March 31.
The Tagesspiegel subsequently reported that a confidential recruitment profile prepared during Cologne’s search for his successor referred to tensions involving leadership and stakeholder relations. The newspaper also reported criticism concerning Amann’s earlier period running Dresden Marketing.
This raises an uncomfortable question for Berlin:
How thoroughly was the background of the winning candidate checked during a search involving more than 100 applicants?
visitBerlin had announced in October 2025 that its supervisory board was engaging an executive-search firm to find Kieker’s successor. The process was supposed to identify a leader capable of continuing Berlin’s success and strengthening the capital’s international appeal.
If warning signs were available in Cologne before the appointment was made, the supervisory board may eventually face questions as difficult as those directed at Amann.
Berlin’s Networking Problem
For the leader of visitBerlin, showing up matters.
Tourism promotion is an intensely relationship-driven business. A destination CEO must maintain relationships with government, airlines, hotels, trade-fair organizers, travel-industry leaders, embassies, cultural organizations and international media.
The Tagesspiegel reported criticism in Berlin after Amann missed the IHK business summer event, arrived late at other important hospitality and political functions and was absent from visitBerlin’s own staff summer celebration.
These may sound like minor social-calendar issues. For a tourism CEO, they are not.
The IHK is itself a shareholder in visitBerlin. Hotel and hospitality organisations are essential partners. The Berlin Senate is a central stakeholder. Employees were adapting to the first major leadership transition after Kieker’s 17-year tenure.
Amann’s own LinkedIn activity nevertheless showed efforts to build industry relationships. In one post following a meeting with the visitBerlin Partnerhotels association, he thanked Berlin hoteliers for an open exchange and stressed collaboration with Partnerhotels, DEHOGA Berlin and other partners.
The social-media picture therefore is more nuanced than portraying an executive completely disconnected from Berlin’s tourism industry. Yet public relations cannot substitute for stakeholder confidence.
From Kieker’s Berlin Persona to a Very Different CEO
Burkhard Kieker’s unusually long tenure also created a difficult benchmark.
He became closely associated with the Berlin tourism brand itself. Under his leadership, Berlin developed into one of Europe’s leading city destinations, and visitBerlin explicitly credited him with helping shape that transformation when he stepped down this summer.
Amann was never expected to become another Kieker. But replacing a charismatic executive after 17 years requires a successor who can quickly establish his or her own credibility.
When Amann’s appointment was announced, Kieker himself described running visitBerlin as “one of the most interesting jobs” the city had to offer. Sabine Wendt said the new leadership would need to connect tourism development closely with tourism marketing.
Wendt’s own LinkedIn message announcing Amann’s appointment was revealing. She identified reliable structures, modern leadership and a clear strategic compass as requirements for a strong organization.
Less than nine months after that announcement — and only three months after Amann arrived — those words have acquired an unintended significance.
Is Someone Already Lined Up?
eTurboNews found no reliable public evidence as of September 8 that a specific candidate has already been selected or formally lined up to replace Amann.
That distinction is important.
Speculation is inevitable, particularly because the original recruitment exercise attracted more than 100 applicants. The supervisory board theoretically has a substantial previous candidate pool to revisit, potentially allowing Berlin to move faster than during the original search.
But no public evidence shows that the runner-up from the 2025 process has been approached or that a new appointment has been decided. There are also obvious internal figures capable of maintaining operational continuity.
Sabine Wendt remains managing director and has worked at visitBerlin since 2009. She possesses deep institutional knowledge and already controls destination management and corporate development.
Below the executive board, visitBerlin lists authorized signatories including Matthias Goeze, its Chief Commercial Officer, and Nina Zantout, head of Destination Management and Crisis Management.
Their positions make them relevant to organizational continuity, but there is currently no evidence that either is a candidate for Amann’s managing-director position. Naming either as the likely successor would therefore be speculation.
The supervisory board may instead decide that the process’s credibility requires another external search.
A Website Still Showing the Old Reality
There is another telling detail.
When eTurboNews checked visitBerlin’s corporate pages following reports of Amann’s departure, the organization’s website was still presenting Sabine Wendt and Dr. Jürgen Amann as its management team, and Amann remained listed as managing director.
That may simply reflect the fact that the supervisory board has not yet formally completed the separation.
But it illustrates how quickly events have overtaken an organization that only weeks ago was publicly celebrating its new leadership team.
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