From Jan. 19 to 23, 2011, this event will be holding its 31st edition, a reason why Excelencias sat down with FITUR director Ana Larrañaga.

How does an event like this, with this long road behind it, keep the interest of all attendees year after year? We’ve built a resilient fair that renews itself with each passing edition. For instance, this time around –with the help of the Madrid Tourism Management- we’re going to open up a new exhibition space with a number of LGBT (Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals and Transsexuals) travel choices, one of the tourist niches with great development potentials in recent years. And we’re also revamping the format of FITUR Congress and from this year onward will be known as FITUR Meetings & Events, just to make it fit into the segment’s latest demands. In addition to that, we’re convening once again for the RECEPTIVO ESPAÑA (Incoming Spain) space, and in an effort to make our contributions to developing markets flow much easier, we’re convening INVESTOUR, together with Casa Africa and the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), this time around to underscore the attendance of member countries of the Southern African Development Community (SADC). So, we’re speaking of a living fair, adapted to the market’s current trends, to its demands and needs. We also want the social networks to help improve the interaction among everybody related to FITUR and come up with just another communication channel among themselves. With that view in mind we’ve opened a blog on the FITUR website (www.fitur.es) that will hopefully pan out to be a useful tool to podcast news on the upcoming fair edition. Following a complex economic situation it now seems that a time for rebound has come. What’s FITUR’s role in this comeback environment? Now more than ever before the fair can put better numbers on the board and play its role as a marketing tool because in five days and packed in just one single place, all major stakeholders in the travel and tourism sector can showcase their products and novelties both in the eyes of professionals and end consumers. What will you say to those professionals who might be having second thoughts about attending the fair in early 2011? That despite the endless communications channels that have popped up and developed in recent years –many of them resulting from cutting-edge technology– the human contact, the meetings continue to be a fundamental factor when it comes to doing business. Among many other contributions, FITUR delivers attendees the value-added moment of huddling among participants and cutting deals in a businesslike manner, and they do it in an environment that provides the opportunity of getting in touch with all major players within the sector, with those responsible for the offers, the demands, the management, the suppliers, the trainers, the distributors, the end consumers… in a word, everybody.

Más información / For more information Marina Tejerina Ortega Jefe de Prensa / Press Chief Feria de Madrid 28042 Telf. (0034) 91 722 58 24 marina.tejerina@ifema.es Helena Valera Prensa Internacional IFEMA IFEMA International Press Feria de Madrid 28042 Telf. (0034) 91 722 51 74 evalera@ifema.es