Q & A with Gaston Isoldi, Director General of La Cumbre and Reed Travel Exhibitions Business Development Director

Q & A with Gaston Isoldi
Director General of La Cumbre and Reed Travel Exhibitions Business Development Director

By Jose Carlos de Santiago

Reed Travel Exhibitions organizes more than 400 fairs every year of more than 50 different sectors in 35 countries. In the travel and tourism industry, it is preparing big events like IFTM Top Resa in Paris, London´s WTM and, the 22nd La Cumbre-The Americas’ Travel Industry Summit scheduled for September 7-9 and again in Las Vegas.  After the introduction of the High-End Tourism segment last year, this upcoming edition of La Cumbre brings new additions like Tourist Golf.

Are you working on any other fair aside La Cumbre?
As far as Reed Travel Exhibitions concerns, in the travel division, we also have the ABAV fair, in Brazil.

How many exhibitors do you have for the upcoming edition of La Cumbre?
For the upcoming edition we are expecting 250 exhibitors from The Americas, from Argentina to Canada.

How many buyers?
There are 300 buyers.

What has been the fair’s development over the last three years?
We have a 10 percent annual growth.

Are there any actions planned to continue stimulating the fair’s growth?
What we are doing is incorporating new segments. This year we will introduce the sport tourism segment, in the sub-categories of tourist ski and golf.

When comparing La Cumbre at present with its beginnings, we see that initially it targeted the leisure travel segment, and currently, in addition to maintaining that area, it includes the sections of meetings and incentives, groups and corporations, high-end, and now sports tourism. This is in terms of the segments covered by the fair. Regarding exhibitors, it has been expanded from being an exhibition of the United States to an exhibition of the whole Americas. What we have to do now is increase the presence of exhibitors and buyers.

What is the performance of high-end tourism within La Cumbre?
We included it a year and a half ago, and it keeps growing. La Cumbre’s goal is that by mixing different segments, many specialists in those segments join in little by little. Some of them enter the fair to see what it is about and then from them, it works by word of mouth. What we have seen is that whenever we introduce a new segment, as the years go by that segment keeps growing. It was the same thing with meetings and incentives; when we launched the sector in 2007, 11 percent of the participating buyers were from the meetings and incentives sector: today the percentage has increased to 28 percent.

How many tourism offices participate in La Cumbre?
Las year 13 countries from North, Central and South America, and the Caribbean were represented by tourism offices.

What’s the importance of North America to the fair?
It is very important. The United States takes up 40 percent of the exhibition ground, Latin America and the Caribbean 30 percent and the rest 30 percent we call it “Corporate” that is companies that can’t be assigned to a country in particular, such as hotel chains, some airlines and car rentals.

Are there tour operators among exhibitors?
Yes, there are. 23 percent of the exhibition ground corresponds to receptive tour operators.

Are they specially interested in any of the new segments?
We believe that we should go deeper in the segments that we already have. For example, we have to bring in more high-end products.  Many of the participating group buyers see La Cumbre as a source of alternative destinations. What they see is that in La Cumbre, there are high-end destinations, and now golf and sun destinations with sports tourism, where they can take their groups to.

Is it a main interest of the fair to achieve a strong presence of exhibitors from Latin America in the United States market so that their products are bought there?
In general terms, yes. What has happened in the last four years, when we incorporated Latin America, is that they do more intraregional business than with the United States.

The opening of the US market to Cuba travels, would it be of interest to the fair?
Not yet, not until the government allows us to lead actions with Cuba, but when it happens, Cuba will be certainly invited to the fair.

Some details about La Cumbre 2011…
The exhibition area will be of 3,500 square meters, at The Venetian Resort, Hotel & Casino, in the city of Las Vegas, Nevada. Since it is a relatively small fair, we can keep it there, which is much more convenient for the delegates in terms of the possibilities for networking and business meetings.

Are there any special features? Any fam trip?
We are going to lead pre and post fam trips. The post tour is going to be carried on the weekend following the fair and is organized by Nevada, the host state. There are going to be different fam trips within the state. Regarding pre tours, we have already confirmed fam trips to Alaska, Los Angeles and Anaheim, and we are organizing one in New Mexico.