MITT / Travel and Tourism Exhibition: Opening and Prospects of Spring and Summer Tourist Season

The 16th International exhibition “Travel and Tourism/MITT” will take place from 18 to 21 March 2009 in the Expocentre at Krasnaya Presnya.

Travel and Tourism/MITT exhibition has been run for more than 15 years and is one of the five leading world tourist exhibitions alongside WTM (London) and ITB (Berlin). As usual, MITT opens a spring-summer tourist season. MITT is organised by ITE, a leader of exhibition business in Russia, which is also an organiser of Leisure exhibition in autumn.

Alexander Shtalenkov, General Director of ITE, said: “The exhibition was first run in 1994, during the period of early development of Russian tourism, when current leaders of the business were small tourist companies just starting their search for the market and clients. The exhibition and the industry were growing together having achieved great success in the course of time: today, thousands of companies meet at MITT every year to find new partners and discuss topical issues”.

This year about 3000 companies from 120 countries and regions of the world will participate in the exhibition. MITT 2008 will occupy almost all pavilions of Expocentre. Pavilion 1 will accommodate Russian outbound and inbound tour operators working with various destinations. Pavilion 2 will accommodate European and Mediterranean countries. Forum Pavilion will feature countries of Asia, Africa, Latin America, Australia and islands. Pavilion 8 will accommodate Turkey and major Russian tour operators. Russian regions and Travel Technology Village will be presented in this pavilion, too. Outdoor areas will accommodate Russian tour operators and operators of bus tours. Pavilion 5 will be occupied by TEZ Tour featuring an exposition named TEZ World including both the official stand of the tour operator and stands of various destinations, such as Turkey, Egypt, Spain and Greece.

Dubai is an official partner of MITT 2009, and its stand will feature various events for tour operators, agencies and trade press. Mr. Abdullah Bin Suwaidan, Deputy Director of Overseas Promotion, Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing (DTCM) of Dubai, said: “MITT gives an excellent opportunity to demonstrate one’s strengths and ensure growth of demand for our offers in the field of tourism. We have been participating in the exhibition for 16 years. It helped us to get an access to the Russian market, which we consider to be one of the most important ones”. By the way, UAE national airlines Etihad Airways, which opened a regular flight from Abu Dhabi to Moscow in December last year, for the first time has become an exhibitor at MITT. Flights to the Russian capital are carried out five times a week to Domodedovo airport.
This year geography of exhibitors has expanded: for the first time the exhibition will feature such “exotic” destinations, as Colombia, Costa Rica, Japan, Panama, Macao, and Hainan Island. The overall number of international exhibitors at MITT has grown by 8%. Many traditional participants of the exhibition have substantially increased the space of their expositions. They include Dubai, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, and Fiji.

One of the important sections at MITT will be Travel Technology Village bringing together software developers, tour reservation systems, airline and railway ticket reservation systems, search systems and tourist websites. During the exhibition participants of Travel Technology Village will run presentations of their products and services, as well as master classes for all interested specialists.

This year MITT will feature a Vacancy Fair. For the first time this project was implemented by ITE at the autumn tourist exhibition Leisure at Expocentre, which provided many specialists with an opportunity to get a desired job in the tourist business. Applications for vacancies are received from MITT exhibitors. Specialists of the tourist industry looking for a job can get at the exhibition information about available vacancies and submit their resumes. Partners of the Vacancy Fair are Tourinfo Newspaper and Russian International Academy of Tourism.

On 20 March, MITT will again feature the official awarding ceremony of the annual consumer award in the field of tourism “Travel.ru Star”. Winners are selected by on-line voting of consumers (tourists), who every year choose the best tourist company, hotel, resort, airlines, airport, country and information source at the Website travel.ru. Voting is carried out in 69 nominations. Every year thousands of Internet users participate in voting.

A specialised conference will be run within the exhibition: "Russian Regions: Tourism Development in Conditions of Crisis”. I twill be attended by representatives of the Business Council of UNWTO, THR, Strategy Partners and heads of regional tourist offices.

Within the business programme at MITT 2009, on March 18 and 19, EyeforTravel company (UK) will hold a summit “Distribution and On-Line Marketing”. EyeforTravel events for a number of years have been an integral part of business programmes of the largest international tourist exhibitions in London (WTM) and Berlin (ITB). The summit is dedicated to on-line sales technologies and Internet-marketing in tourism. It will comprise discussions of methods for on-line technology introduction, new distribution channels, modern e-marketing strategies aimed at reduction of a tourist product sale cost, improvement of companies’ profitability and competitiveness. More than 25 specialists from TUI, Thomas Cook, IHG, BA, Hyatt, Aeroflot, Tez-Tour and other companies will share their experience at the summit.

The first two days of the exhibition (March 18 and 19) are open for trade visitors only. Visitors will be admitted upon invitations or named badges only. Visitors can register at the Website of the exhibition http://www.mitt.ru/. To get registered, one should fill in a registration form, print out an electronic ticket, present at the Express Registration desk at the entrance to the exhibition and get a named badge. The exhibition is open for general public on March 20 and 21. Tickets can be purchased at Expocentre’s cash offices.

Official sponsors of MITT 2009 are: Anex Tour and Atlantis Line.

///////////////////////////////////////

MITT / Travel and Tourism Exhibition

The main tourist exhibition in Russia
3000 companies from 120 countries and regions
First held in 1994

Organiser – ITE international exhibition company

Founded in 1991
Offices of the company are located 19 countries
More then 800 employees
Holds more than 200 exhibitions worldwide annually
Holds 5 tourist exhibitions: Travel and Tourism/MITT, Leisure, TourSib – Russia; KITF – Kazakhstan; UITT – Ukraine; AITF – Azerbaijan.

For further information, please contact:
Ekaterina Sviridova
PR Manager ITE
Tel: + 7 (495) 935-73-50