Lufthansa Airlines will launch its new nonstop service today between Denver and Munich, Germany, offering up Bavarian food and drinks at DIA to mark the occasion.

It's an event 25 years in the making.

Local business leaders, city officials and airport executives have worked for more than a decade to lure nonstop flights from Denver International Airport to Munich, while efforts to create lasting bonds between the two regions date back to the early 1980s.

Those efforts - which included cultural exchanges, delegations and carefully cultivated relationships on both sides of the Atlantic - were instrumental in helping generate enough demand to support a daily flight, local officials say.

"We are not Washington, D.C., New York, San Francisco or Los Angeles in marketing terms," Sally Covington, DIA's deputy manager of aviation, public relations and marketing, said from Munich this week. "We had to work to foster ties, to build awareness, to build a brand in Munich."

The flight is a coup for DIA and the city, as it's expected to generate $108 million annually in economic benefits and lead to even more business and cultural ties down the road. It also will help bring more international visitors to and through Denver and give Coloradans another access point to Europe and beyond.

The seeds for the new flight were planted in the early 1980s, when architect Carl Worthington and real estate developer George Wallace formed a Colorado-Bavaria partnership. Their goal was to create stronger ties with the southern state in Germany, where Munich is the capital.

Worthington and Wallace, who both designed the Denver Tech Center, saw several similarities between the regions, including a concentration of high-tech companies, an entrepreneurial spirit and a laid-back culture.

"We felt it was important to reach out to other parts of the free democratic world for economic development and a cultural exchange," said Worthington, who is now an executive with OZ Architecture in Boulder. "We identified Bavaria as a good opportunity."

The two hooked up with Friedrich Vogel, a prominent businessman in Bavaria from an influential German family, who also was interested in cultivating ties between the two regions.

One the partnership's first moves was to organize an exhibit highlighting Colorado's technology industry, agriculture, tourism and arts. The exhibit was displayed in five Bavarian cities, finishing up in Munich, where it attracted about 30,000 people over a three-week period.

Over the years, the partnership organized delegations and other events designed to increase awareness of Colorado in Bavaria, and vice versa.

The relationship between Denver and Munich took on a new dynamic in the early 1990s, when the two developed a sister airport partnership. Officials on both sides began aggressively pushing for Lufthansa to link the cities by air with nonstop flights.

While many factors led to Lufthansa's decision to start the route, the German carrier acknowledged that efforts over the past 25 years to link Colorado and Bavaria helped build the market.

"I would say (the new flight) is almost a manifestation of the success they have had," said Don Bunkenburg, Lufthansa's head of corporate sales. "I think that their efforts have yielded a rise in demand from both origins to the other."

Today, Colorado has strong tourism and business ties with Germany in general. Nearly 350 of 750 Colorado companies surveyed by Denver's World Trade Center said they export to Germany. And Colorado businesses exported $371 million worth of goods to the country last year - a 33 percent increase from 2005, according to the organization.

"Certainly this provides a bigger incentive for people in Bavaria to invest in Colorado," said Jim Reis, head of the Denver WTC, "and for Coloradans to do business in that part of the world."

Spreading its wings

Denver International Airport now offers nonstop flights to 18 international destinations. Three are in Europe:

• Frankfurt, Germany

• Munich, Germany

• London

Things to do in Munich

• Do as the tourists do

Visit the Marienplatz - the tourist-packed town center - and gawk at the 100-year-old glockenspiel, which features mechanical figures that perform two stories from German history.

• Do as the locals do

Bare it all in the Englischer Garten, a gigantic, diverse park with designated areas for nude sunbathing, among other things.

• Festival hop

Check out one of the city's many festivals, from the beer-laden Oktoberfest in September to the Opera Festival in July to the summer and winter Tollwood Festival featuring music, comedy and theater.

• Get your wurst on

Eat your fill of pork-based culinary delights, including the famous Weisswurst, a white sausage made from a mixture of veal, pork and, sometimes, calf's head.

• Get your weissbier on

Guzzle down premium Bavarian brews at Munich's several hundred beer gardens, cellars and halls, including the Hofbruhaus, a 400-year-old establishment that seats 4,000 people.

walshc@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-2744

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