Every trend in the tourism market, its technological and management innovations, the new market segments and a major representation of the worldwide tourist offering will gather together for another year at FITUR, the International Tourism Trade Show, which brings forward the dates of its 36th edition to 20-24 January 2016. As is now traditional, FITUR, organised by IFEMA, will inaugurate the travel industry’s international circuit of gatherings.

 

The Trade Show will again prove to be the international tourism industry’s largest business platform, for it attracts the most comprehensive exhibition of proposals and services from businesses, organisations and institutions from 165 countries and regions worldwide. This is why, with more than three months to go before it is staged, FITUR 2016 is intensifying the preparations for its upcoming staging in the confidence that it will repeat last year’s magnificent results, which broke the record of participation with 12% more international professional visitors. This means that over those five days 125,084 professionals from 139 countries visited the Trade Show, which boasted a total of 222,551 attendees including the weekend public. 

 

 

 

The rising trend in participation in FITUR and the optimistic climate observed at the last staging reflect the good times the tourism sector is enjoying. This is also confirmed by the 4% increase in the number of international tourist arrivals –up to 538 million– in the first half of 2015, according to figures supplied by the World Tourism Organisation, UNWTO.

 

Equally, and in regard to Spain, tourism is the synonym for growth and economic recovery. Between January and August 2015, our country welcomed 47.2 million international tourists according to the Frontur survey conducted by the Ministry of Industry, Energy and Tourism, representing an increase of 4.1% over the same period in the previous year. 7% growth was also registered in expenditure generated by non-residents, which amounted to 46.590 billion euros, as is apparent from the Egatur report drafted by the same organisation. These figures make of Spain the third most visited country in the world, only behind France and the United States, and the second in the ranking of destinations by expenditure made by international tourists. 

 

Also noteworthy are the signs of consolidation and growth experienced by Spanish outgoing tourism. In the past year, Spanish residents made a total of 11.78 million trips abroad, representing an annual increase of 4.8% according to the official Familitur survey. An increase was also seen in average expenditure by Spanish tourists travelling outside our borders, which amounted to 13.565 billion euros. This upward trend, which is expected to continue over the next few years, increases even further the appeal and opportunities for attracting tourists offered by FITUR 2016 to all the countries participating in the Trade Show. 

 

 

 

One of FITUR’s characteristics is its ability to adapt to market realities and to bring to participants the possibilities offered by the new trends in tourism. In this regard, the International Tourism Trade Show is structuring its offering around the different spaces it has gradually developed and, in particular, the latest novelties, FITUR SHOPPING and FITUR HEALTH, which were successfully launched at the last staging in response to two sectors with significant growth potential. In their first edition, both sections hosted the proposals of 24 and 15 companies respectively, and expectations for the upcoming staging are higher levels of participation for the two monographic events, both of businesses and of public. 

 

The remainder of sections are proving to be equally effective in helping tourism professionals to find the key to successfully confront the challenge of innovation in tourism management. Thus the fourth edition of FITUR KNOW HOW & EXPORT, promoted by the Ministry of Industry, Energy and Tourism, through SEGITTUR and in collaboration with ICEX España Exportación e Inversiones (ICEX Spain Exports and Investments), highlights the most innovative solutions associated with tourism management in Spanish companies and developments and their potential in gaining access to markets abroad.  

 

FITURTECH, hand in hand with ITH, the Hotel Technology Institute, is staging its tenth edition, bringing us the tourism of the future.   

 

Also in collaboration with the ITH, and together with the World Tourism Organisation UNWTO, FITUR is organising the seventh staging of FITURGREEN, which advances innovation and sustainability in the tourism industry as the way to drive competitiveness forward in both businesses and destinations, uniting current trends with consumer expectations and demands.

 

For its part, the sixth FITUR GAY (LGBT), organised jointly with Diversity Consulting, is offering a business space for the gay sector, whose relevance as a segment and demand group for the worldwide tourism industry is gaining considerable momentum. In regard to Spain, this type of tourism, according to a report published in August by LGBT Capital, represents revenue of 6.1 billion in visits made by gays and lesbians. In this section, a particularly prominent role will be played by the lesbian segment, which will be reinforced thanks to the agreement with Ella Corporate. The potential for development and growth in gay tourism has developed in parallel to the staging of FITUR GAY (LGBT), which has experienced 300% growth in participating companies since its first staging. 

 

 

All these sections have their own perfectly differentiated display spaces and areas for debating and personalised professional meetings. In this regard we should emphasise that FITUR will boost its programme of B2B meetings, tailored appointments and scheduled agenda of contacts to facilitate encounters and the possibilities of commercial exchange and agreements –at the past staging, more than 5,000 scheduled meetings materialised at the Fair’s B2B Space at the service of exhibitors and visitors, where multiple trade collaborations were closed. The FITUR B2B Hosted Buyer Workshop will again be staged, unfolding an intense schedule of personal, previously arranged appointments between participating companies and a broad selection of international hosted buyers. 

 

FITUR is also renewing its commitment to sustainable development in Africa through its tourism industry, in the Tourism Investment and Business for Africa Forum, INVESTOUR, which will be staging its seventh edition on 21 January 2016. The Forum was launched jointly with the UNWTO and Casa África and its last edition attracted 380 participants from Africa and the Middle East, 50 Spanish organisations and businesses and ten international (non-African) ones, plus 175 African projects (of which 70 were Spanish).

 

Lastly, FITUR will again host an intensive schedule of professional workshops and encounters, prominent among which are the eighth Tourism Leadership Forum organised by EXCELTUR; the events organised by the UNWTO, among them the prize-giving ceremony of the 12th UNWTO Awards for Excellence and Innovation in Tourism, as well as the rest of activities that will gather together the principal institutional and business representatives from the industry. In addition, as an added value to the Trade Show’s commercial activity, FITUR’s monographic sections –FITUR KNOW HOW & EXPORT, FITURTECH, FITURGREEN, FITUR GAY (LGBT)– will feature a comprehensive programme of parallel workshops and activities where qualified experts from around the world will analyse tourism’s current situation.