Ana Larrañaga. Director of FITUR
Q- Ana, can you tell us the way IFEMA is structured?
A- IFEMA is a body that depends on the Madrid Chamber of Commerce, the City Hall, the Madrid Community and Caja Madrid. These trusteeships are our owners. Our chain of command is laid out as follows: a front office, a director-general, a board of directors made up of the director, the deputy director-general, the financial director, the marketing director, the director of human resources and systems, and the secretary-general. The whole package of fairs that we organize at IFEMA is divided in seventeen management offices. Each and every fair management office is in charge of developing a bunch of other events. In my particular case, I run the FITUR office and two other art fairs. That’s how the system works.
Q- FITUR has outdone all expectations from previous fairs. How do you assess this year’s edition?
A- Oh, yes, you’re absolutely right. This edition outnumbered all attendance indicators from last year’s fair that, as a matter of fact, had gone all previous edition one better. We’re definitely growing year after year, and that speaks volumes of the confidence people have in FITUR as a great marketing and advertisement tool to target services in different travel destinations. All stats go without saying: over 11,000 companies, representations from 170 countries and regions in an exhibition space of more than 79,000 square meters. These numbers turn FITUR into one of the world’s two largest fairs. We’ve counted on the participation of more than 100,000 professionals and over 110,000 people that visited the fair this past weekend when it was open to the general public.
Q- What do you consider was the most important aspect in this year’s FITUR?
A- The most important thing of all was the way that attendants from all companies highlighted FITUR –as I said before- as a useful marketing and advertisement tool in both its actions and goals. There’s no doubt in my mind that this is the most important thing for any fair.
In addition to this, I’d mention the ever-growing international participation. With that aim in mind, we set up an additional pavilion that has allowed us to organize and rationalize the offers of specific geographical regions in a much better way. At the same time, this has also let us improve offer concentration, favored the contacts of exhibitors and strengthening their business and meeting potentials. On the other hand, this makes tours and contacts easier for visitors. The fact that some kind of offer is clustered in a specific space provides more time, better use of that time and, consequently, larger troves of contacts and meetings at the fair that have permitted us to provide more exhibition space for foreign attendants in global terms. That means a 7 percent increase as far as the number of participating foreign companies is concerned.
Q- Two fairs, FITUR and TOURCOM, came to pass in the same timeframe in 2004. How has this combination influenced in the fair’s traditional going? Hasn’t it been a little bit complicated to attend to two major events at the same time?
A- Well, make no mistakes about it; that takes a broader effort on the part of the organization. But FITUR is not only a commercial scenario and a business opportunity, but also an incredibly large source of information through technical sessions that take place simultaneously. Listen, this year the WTO asked for our collaboration to conduct the first world conference on communication, TOURCOM, and we understood that as a pretty good window of opportunity for our professionals to juggle both events at the same time. Of course, I understand the problems with time, especially for some professionals and the things they want to do at the fair. Time planning has been tremendously important to attend two events that are unfolding at the same time because the conference on communication in a time of crisis within the framework of TOURCOM was labeled as highly important for companies and governments alike, chiefly to learn how to make use of those particular communication tools called mass media whenever you want to relay timely and crystal-clear information about the real scope of a problem affecting a certain destination or just going on at a specific time there.
Therefore, I believe that complementing the commercial side of the show with the training and informative parts yielded benefits for all participants. It’s true that in some cases lack of time barred us from carrying out all activities or attending all events, or making all contacts or being in all forums we would have liked to. However, many professionals appreciated this initiative because, as I said, they were able to benefit from both tradeshows. As a matter of fact, timing was so well planned that you didn’t have to be in all events all the time. You could choose from a variety of topics that were going on during the two-day event, maybe be there for a couple of hours, and then spend the rest of the time in making other commitments and contacts.
Q- FITUR CONGRESSES as such is a particular domestic event aimed at the promotion of Spain. Can we say that the end goal will be the expansion of its outreach to the magnitude of an international FITUR CONGRESSES?
A- That’s not the goal for the time being. The FITUR CONGRESSES section is devised to be a good setting for boosting up the internationalization of the Spanish business sector and we’re going to continue working in that direction for some time now, unless the organizing committee decides to do otherwise. Right now, this is an efficient tool. It’s structured as a workshop in which purchasers, from their chairs, receive salespeople thanks to an array of prearranged appointments. More than 4,600 appointments have come through and the results have been gauged by means of a poll conducted by Turespaña, including previous editions of the fair, and in which over 70 percent of participating purchasers have already organized some kind of congress or convention in Spain. Therefore, this is a very high percentage we’re talking about and there’s a clear intention on the part of the remaining 30 percent to carry out those congress, incentive or convention programs, that is, companies willing to follow suit. That 30 percent of companies that haven’t yet pulled off a contact through concrete actions, have shown their intention to do so in a short period of time. Spain is a leading country in Europe –somewhere around the frontrunner and the second place- as a business destination. That puts us in an excellent position to continue leading the pack, to enhance its share of the market pie thanks, of course, to the strength, the quality and diversification of our travel industry. Therefore, the idea here is to continue working in that direction, to keep up the good work and give the local tourist sector this magnificent opportunity of buttressing its presence and contacts at a world level.
Q- The EITBM from the Reed Group picked Barcelona to host the world’s biggest congress fair for the next four years. Why did IFEMA let such a good opportunity slip through its fingers?
A- Well, Reed should answer that question, not us. Turespaña, the Madrid Convention Bureau, either the patronage or the Madrid Community, made a very attractive offer in which IFEMA was the host of the show. I guess it was an extremely luring offer.
Q- Do you think this fair here in Spain will help further boost our country’s image overseas?
A- You bet it will. The fact that Spain has been chosen to hold the event for four years in a row is reason enough to celebrate, whether it is in Barcelona or Madrid. Well, congrats to Barcelona. I wish they would have picked Madrid, but they didn’t.
Q- Do you believe it’ll give both Barcelona and Catalonia a big boost as congress and incentive destinations?
A- There’s no doubt in my mind that it’ll give Barcelona quite a big boost as a congress destination. On the other hand, let’s not forget what Madrid has to offer and IFEMA is a good case in point. We organize more than fifty fairs every year. There’ll be more than 70 events this year alone, let alone the ones planned by foreign agents that rent our venues. IFEMA is the leading body in all attendance indicators inside Spain as far as congresses and events are concerned. We’ll continue working hard to heighten Madrid in that sense through IFEMA, to boost it up as a major congress and meeting destination, because fairs are the powerhouses that turn this destination –Madrid- into such a huge generator of business and wealth. And believe me when I say that in this particular field, Madrid is right now beating Barcelona and other fairgrounds around the nation to a frazzle.
Q- Was there any specific geographical region that sported a noticeable growth in this year’s FITUR or that you foresee to grow in 2005?
A- Well, we had growths in all geographical regions in the 2004 FITUR. Europe is a well-established offer at FITUR. The Americas have kept up the same amount of rented exhibition space, coupled with slight increases in terms of attendants, either direct or indirect. Of course, the other three geographical clusters –Northern Africa-Middle East, Asia Pacific and Africa have all posted major growing numbers from the previous edition. That lays bare, to the best of my understanding, the interest of these destinations in Spain as a tourist-sending market that’s clearly on the rise with each passing year, over five percent annually. I must say that we still have a long way to go as a traveler-sending country.
Q- Finally the Caribbean, the destination where we’re based, flexed its muscles this year. Even the Caribbean Hotel Association (CHA) attended FITUR for the first time this time around. Could this open up a new horizon especially in the market of the non-Spanish-speaking countries that hadn’t so far seen Spain as a tourist-sending market of choice for their destinations?
A- You bet the presence of CHA, representing over 1,100 hotels in the Caribbean, is a quite a push for this geographical region at the fair, a pretty strong allure. And the fact that we’ve established some level of collaboration exchange with them on the part of FITUR, the fact that they’d been here, I mean, Jamaica and Aruba with stands of their own after having opened offices in Spain, the presence of the Caribbean Tourism Organization (CTO) with its director for Europe at the helm –by the way, she gave us a very positive view of the fair and talked to us on a pledge to suggest all member states to attend next year’s event- the presence of Santa Lucia, Barbados and Curacao at the CTO stand, as well as the interest of other nations in attending next year’s FITUR, give us quite a push in this region. All this interest and the highlighting of FITUR and Spain as a destination, as very interesting markets to them, is really great. We shouldn’t forget that the non-Spanish-speaking Caribbean is one of the destinations outside Europe that draws more interest among Spanish travelers.
Q- Can you give us some comparative statistics to better cotton on to the attention future exhibitors will focus on FITUR compared to other fairs held worldwide?
A- I think the best we can do in this case is to disclose some figures.
ITB features a turnout of 10,000 participating companies, an exhibition space of 84,000 square meters and a representation of 178 countries, all this in its latest edition back in 2003. FITUR has an attendance of over 11,000 companies from 170 countries or regions, with an exhibition space of 79,000 square meters. These stats kind of put FITUR somewhat up to par with ITB, but way over the number of attending companies and the amount of rented exhibition space at the WTM, which is going to be in the neighborhood of 48,000 square meters of exhibition space and over 6,000 participating companies from 184 nations.
As to size and outreach, FITUR is penciled in as the world’s second-largest tourism fair, and attendance indicators prove us right. I think the fact that the WTO picked FITUR as the best scenario for holding its first world conference on communication in a time of crisis reveals the international importance that this fair has in the realm of world travel.
I’d like to encourage all Caribbean nations, countries that you know so well and keep close ties with, to show up at FITUR and use FITUR as a way to make their markets stronger, to keep competitiveness on the right track and to beef it up in those destinations.
