The thirty-second edition of the International Tourism Trade Fair, FITUR 2012, finally closed its doors after confirming its role as a key meeting-point and business forum for the most professional tourist industry. In spite of the current economic climate, the travel industry witnessed worldwide growth of more than 4% in 2011, which highlights the important role that tourism plays as an engine for economic growth in many countries. FITUR once again sought to serve as a key forum for fostering synergies among professionals, adapting to the current situation and to demands within the sector. The fair’s endeavors to renew its appeal by creating new initiatives to promote exchange amongst professionals made up an aspect that was highlighted by the Secretary General of the World Tourism Organization, Taleb Rifai, during his welcome address at the fair: “FITUR is an extraordinary meeting-point and a tourist trade fair that has been capable of following the market and enhancing its competitive appeal. […] I am sure that FITUR’s organisers will continue to surprise us in the future when it comes to creating the very best environment for business.”
Professionals also recognised the fair’s role as an effective means of promoting trade transactions, as reflected by the 4% increase in participation in the business area at the fair. Furthermore, the number of foreign companies talking part at the event increased by up to 20%. In total, the fair featured some 9,506 companies from 167 countries and regions. The number of trade visitors also increased by 1.9%, a figure that rose to 4% in the case of foreign visitors. This growth trend began at the last edition of the fair when the number of trade visitors increased by 3.1%. All of these figures reflect the strong interest on the part of companies to be present at FITUR, as well as the highly attractive nature of the exhibition for trade visitors from both Spain and abroad. As a whole, FITUR 2012 featured some 210,877 participants (+1.7%), reconfirming the fair’s role as a key point of reference for promotion, as highlighted by Hamdi Zaki, the Head of Galaxia Tours and former Egyptian Tourism Advisor for Spain and Portugal: “Attending FITUR means maintaining an important showcase for the industry, as well as establishing contacts and preserving these contacts over time … this is reflected in the event’s business figures and the number of deals that are secured at the fair”.
The fair’s capacity to bring together the leading players within the tourist industry means that FITUR is the framework chosen by organisations such as Exceltur for the staging of pre-fair events such as the Sixth Tourism Leadership Forum. The closing ceremony for this meeting was presided over by the King and Queen of Spain, whilst the inauguration featured the attendance of Mariano Rajoy, the Spanish Prime Minister. These important figures were complemented by a large number of politicians and businessmen from the industry, who took part both at this Forum and at CIMET, the Latin American Conference of Tourism Ministers and Businessmen, which also staged its 15th edition the day before FITUR 2012 officially opened. Furthermore, the Royal Family once again showed its support for the industry and for the fair itself with the presence of the Prince and Princess of Asturias at the inauguration ceremony for FITUR 2012. The royal couple subsequently undertook a tour of the halls in order to discover the products and services available at the exhibition.
A Forum for Promoting Business Synergies
As part of FITUR’s commitment to stage meetings that generate new business opportunities, this year witnessed the implementation of initiatives such as INVESTOUR for the Americas and INVESTOUR Africa, promoted in conjunction with the UNWTO and, in the latter case, also in collaboration with Casa África. These meetings sought to boot investment in tourism projects located on these two continents. At these two events alone, some 536 trade appointments were held.
B2B agreements between potential partners were also promoted at a Brokerage Event and at the second edition of the FITUR Workshop, where one hundred guests of the fair’s Hosted Buyers Programme, were able to discover the products and ideas of the companies and bodies taking part at FITUR 2012. What is more, on this occasion, these buyers were chosen for the Programme by the exhibitors themselves, in accordance with their interests and their areas of business. The meetings of this Second Hosted Buyers Workshop witnessed an extraordinary response, as highlighted by Marco Almeida, the Marketing Director of Bahia travel, a Brazilian tour operator, who was invited to the fair and declared that “we enjoyed the excellent business management at FITUR”. This opinion was shared by María Malavia, from Costa de Barcelona, an exhibitor at the fair and participant at the Workshop: “We found the event highly interesting and I believe future business opportunities could arise as a result of the contacts we made”.
Business exchange also played a starring role at the second edition of FITUR LGBT, an event organised in collaboration with Diversity Consulting, which grew in terms of participation and international appeal with the incorporation of destinations such as Israel and South Korea. FITUR LGBT also staged a series of specialised conferences in order to provide tourism professionals with guidance regarding this business segment, which accounts for some 10%of all tourists worldwide and represents 15% of overall tourism expenditure. “Our participation at FITUR was positive because our intention was to promote ourselves as a company within the Globalia Group, which, as part of its overall range of products and services in Madrid, has a department specialising in gay tourism. The contacts we made were very good”, declared Valentín Navarro Ródenas, the Receptive Tourism Director for Madrid and European Circuits at Welcome Incoming Services, which forms part of the Globalia Group.
Another of the segments that is rising to the fore within the industry is known as shopping-based tourism. In this respect, FITUR 2012, in addition to presenting the ideas of various companies that have created a special leisure and tourism concept based on shopping experiences, hosted the staging of a roundtable organised by Chic Outlet Shopping® as part of its Activities Programme. This roundtable conference analysed the growing interest in shopping-based tourism, as well as its impact on the luxury and travel sectors.
Within the extensive range of market segments present at FITUR, this year also granted special importance to culinary tourism, which is promoted by many destinations as a means of boosting their appeal to tourists. In effect, this was the main theme of the specialised forum known as “Saborea España” (A Taste of Spain), which reflected upon new marketing methods and successful experiences within this field.
Business and Training
FITUR once again demonstrated its worth as an effective tool in the hands of professionals from the industry. Thus, in order to enhance professionals’ awareness of the latest developments regarding sustainability within the tourism industry, the fair hosted the staging of the third edition of FITUR GREEN, an event organised by FITUR and the Hotel Technological Institute (ITH), which was organised in collaboration with the UNWTO and the Madrid Tourist Board. This initiative focused its conferences on energy service providers, offering companies the opportunity to increase their energy savings without any investment. FITUR GREEN witnessed a 20% increase in terms of participation: “FITUR GREEN enabled us to confirm that sustainability is not merely a future promise, but a challenge of the present. We were also able to confirm the considerable interest of the Spanish tourist and hotel industry when it comes to incorporating efficient energy management measures, not only in order to save costs and optimise resources, but also in order to design new and different commercial strategies that have a positive impact on the brand image and corporate reputation of tourism companies”, declared Coralia Pino, the Head of Sustainability and Energy Efficiency Projects at ITH.
Alongside the possibility of encouraging a sense of respect for the environment, tourism has the capacity to promote more just and equal societies. In this sense, FITUR hosted the staging of the workshop entitled “Empowerment of Women within the Tourist Industry As a Means of Boosting Development,” in which the UNWTO and UN WOMEN sought to examine the challenges and opportunities that the tourist industry offers women in terms of employment, initiative, leadership, education and community.
With a view to increasing awareness among professionals regarding the tools that can help boost their businesses, FITURTECH was organised by FITUR and ITH. The 2012 edition witnessed the highest levels of participation ever recorded over the six editions of this event, based on more than 3,500 Spanish and foreign professionals, as well as the presence of various prestigious speakers from the field of new technologies applied to the tourist industry, such as Emilio Duró from Iter Consultores and Andy Stalman from Cato Partners, among others. “The success of this edition of Fiturtech was the result of including various papers and workshops aimed at analysing the challenges and possibilities of the most advanced technologies, as well as an introduction to the most basic online management and marketing tools. Fiturtech also offered professionals an integrated insight into how to manage a heterogeneous range of technologies designed to provide an appropriate response to all kinds of customers and clients,” declared Álvaro Carrillo, the Managing Director of ITH.
From a different perspective, but also with a view to providing training for professionals, MINUBE promoted the Minube School, a series of courses designed to teach professionals and especially SME’s such as travel agencies, active tourism companies, etc., how to make the most of the Internet and social media in order to reach the new “social” traveller.
Social Media: The Fair Goes Beyond Its Halls
Technology also played a starring role within the organisation of FITUR 2012 itself, given that the applications available on the fair’s web site for facilitating the management of business between exhibitors and the fair’s organisers were optimised. Furthermore, on this occasion FITUR sought to boost communication among the different players at the fair (professionals, exhibitors, members of the public and the media) through their activities on the social media. According to a study carried out by the social media marketing agency, HEY AV, which was presented during the course of the fair at the First Meeting on Social Media Experiences, throughout the fair’s one-week duration some 50,000 messages were exchanged regarding the fair, generated by FITUR’s 45 million followers and its exhibitors on Facebook and Twitter alone.
This interaction via social media was complemented by a series of Travel Blogger Meetings, organised in collaboration with Interface Tourism. These meetings brought together some of the most competitive travel bloggers within the industry, numbering more than one hundred in total. These bloggers were granted their own accreditation for the fair and were able to discover the ideas presented by the companies, destinations and bodies taking part at the exhibition.
Social media and the opinions and impressions conveyed in tourist blogs enabled FITUR to go beyond the halls of Feria de Madrid in order to reach those who follow the event through these channels. These tools complement the extensive media coverage that the fair enjoys. In this respect, the year 2012 edition brought together 6,313 journalists and 3,318 publications from 54 different countries.
FITUR 2012 confirmed its role as a key forum for promoting the tourist industry. The next edition of FITUR will take place January 16-20, 2013.
FITUR, www.fituronline.com