After a very difficult year, the tourism sector is up and running again. The 41st edition of Fitur – the International Tourism Fair – opens in Madrid on Wednesday – one of the benchmark tourism events in the world. This year’s edition is being held in a hybrid format – in situ and online – which, although the number of countries attending and the venue capacity have had to be reduced, is expected to serve as a turning point to relaunch the tourism and travel sector, both of which are strategic for Spain, with a great weighting in the global economy.
Despite the restrictions imposed by the pandemic, this is the first tourism trade fair on the international circuit of major events to be held in situ, thanks to greater control of COVID-19 and the positive development of the vaccination process. The event, which has been inaugurated today by Their Majesties, the King and Queen, and will remain open until Sunday, is limited to sector professionals for the first three days and then open to the general public over the weekend.
55 countries will have a physical presence at IFEMA, while another 79 will do so through Fitur LIVEConnect – an advanced technological platform with a powerful search engine and active artificial intelligence recommendations that extend beyond the dates the trade fair is scheduled. For their part, all the Spanish regional authorities will physically take part in the 46,000 square metres of the seven pavilions enabled to hold the trade fair, which will also involve the participation of more than 5,000 companies – 38% of them international. Accordingly, both tourist destinations and transport, accommodation, solutions and services sectors for the tourism industry will be present at the event, along with travel agencies and tour operators, all in a scenario to boost the reactivation of the sector and the long-awaited gathering of professionals.
The forecast for attendance at this event stands at around 50,000 national and international professionals from Wednesday to Friday and another 50,000 members of the public over the weekend.
Boost to safe tourism
EFE/Juan Carlos Hidalgo
Institutional support from the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Tourism, the Regional Government of Madrid and the rest of the regional government has proven to be fundamental to this first experience of international mobility, along with such international institutions as the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO). This joint effort is not just to reactivate global tourism, but also to bolster Spain’s image as one of the main proponents and destinations for safe tourism.
The new features of this year’s event include the holding of Fitur Lingua, on language tourism, which Spain is heading up, and Fitur Woman, to highlight the key role of women in the tourism world. These are in addition to the events focused on congress and business tourism, health tourism, film shoot destinations, opportunities for cultural events, talent and professional training, destinations to enhance diversity and technology solutions.
The Fitur Partner tourist destination at this year’s event is the Region of Madrid, which thus involves its active participation at the trade fair, in alliance with the Fitur brand to once again place the region as a global tourism benchmark and as an economic driver, thanks to its competitiveness and economic fabric.
Furthermore, with the aim of boosting safe tourism, the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, will present the functioning of the Green Digital Certificate on Friday – the document that may be applied as from June and which will start to be tested through pilot projects between countries and territories of the European Union (EU) to confirm its smooth functioning, as the Minister for Industry, Trade and Tourism, Reyes Maroto, recently explained. Some 10 destinations in Spain have already requested to take part in these pilot projects.
Global Spain, present at Fitur
Manuel Muñiz during his speech at the forum organized by IATA.
Given the weight of Fitur in the international and economic projection of the country, the State Secretary for Global Spain, Manuel Muñiz, inaugurated at lunchtime the forum entitled ‘Flying in summer: how to recover tourism and the national economy’, organised by the International Air Transport Association (IATA). In his speech, he highlighted vaccination, the Digital Green Certificate and today's approval by COREPER of the reopening of EU borders to vaccinated tourists from third countries as factors of confidence in the coming months.
Furthermore, within the framework of Fitur Screen, given over to promoting destination for shooting fiction, Manuel Muñiz will take part on Friday, 21 May, in the round table entitled ‘The audio-visual hub; a project to transform the country and Spain’s image around the world’. The President of the Spain Film Commission, Carlos Rosado, will mediate this meeting, which will analyse the implementation of the ‘Spain: European Audio-visual Hub’ Plan, pushed through by the government, and its value for the economic reactivation of our country and for the transformation of Spain’s image around the world.
Along with the State Secretary for Global Spain, the State Secretary for Telecommunications and Digital Infrastructures, Roberto Sánchez, and the Mayor of Valladolid, Óscar Puente, will also take part in the round table.