Q & A with Maria Badakh, MITT Chief of Sales and International Affairs
Moscow International Travel & Tourism Exhibition, MITT, which held its 20th edition a few weeks ago, gathered for the first time ever tourism ministry and industry stakeholders from the Caribbean, North America, Africa, the Middle East, Europe and East Asia. The success of that summit, the push of the Russian market, the increasing attendance of South American nations to the fair and the popularity of the Caribbean travel destinations were some of the topics addressed by Maria Badakh, MITT chief of Sales and International Affairs, in an exclusive interview with Caribbean News Digital.
What is the most important success this year in MITT?
The success for us was definitely the ministerial summit, the summit of ministers and high-profile visitors which came to our exhibition. So, we put together these events for the first time to mark the 20th anniversary of MITT exhibition and we had about fifteen ministers attending the event, which is in my opinion a big success and we intend to carry on. From now on, every year, we will be putting together ministerial summits.
What are the new things being offered in this year’s show?
As before, we can see increased interest from South American exhibitors. This year we had four new destinations from South America, which are Paraguay, Uruguay, Ecuador and Guatemala. We also had Cuba as partner country and the Minister of Tourism of Cuba was our guest of honor to the opening ceremony and the gala party in the Ritz Hotel.
We could also see the popularity of Cuba´s stand, Dominican Republic’s stand and Jamaica’s stand. Definitely, one of the most important things going on MITT is the increased interest on South and Latin America.
Do you think there is a better way for Caribbean islands and the Caribbean countries to enter the Russian market in MITT?
We have the visas and flights. Many of them have sorted visas already, so Russians don’t need visas to go to Cuba, they don’t need visas to go to the Dominican Republic. I think that the Jamaican situation is now the same. The next step is related to the flights. There is a Transero flight to Jamaica. I’m not aware of the latest developments, but Jamaica was dealing with that flight problem for a few years and now it’s all sorted, which resulted in a huge increase for Jamaica from the Russian market.
How many countries attended this year’s MITT?
We have about 180 countries and destinations. When I say destinations is because some destinations, like Catalonia, have their own stands, which is actually the size of the stand of Turishipana. We also have separated stands, some regional stands, some regions and countries, altogether 180.
Mexico has opened up to the Russian market through MITT. Is that right?
They came to exhibit three years ago. Ambassador Bravo, who is now the adviser to the president of Mexico, he did a lot of things to facilitate visas for Russian tourists. It’s much easier now: it only takes three days only to get the visas to Mexico. Actually there is a popular TV reality show, which is called Holidays in Mexico, it’s about Russian young people who are in Mexico for holidays. It actually helps because you can see Mexico on TV every day.
What are the new destinations in Asia?
We have the Philippines for the first time.
What about Korea?
Korea has been attending the show for many years, maybe for ten years.
The new possibilities in MITT with the new technologies have opened an overall luxury social media. Do you have news partners in MITT?
We have a Technology Sector. The most successful new sector we had was Medical Tourism, which was launched two years ago together with the conference and it was a huge success. So, this is something we intend to continue doing.
Luxury is a sector, but because the show is so huge it’s really difficult to separate it from the national stands we have. Each stand has luxury participants, but they want to remain within their own country groups. They don’t want to have their own sector. I think we will continue as national groups. So we have eight pavilions based on geographical locations and we will continue to do that.
When has next year’s MITT edition been slated for?
It will be the same week in March, starting on Wednesday, so I assume it will be on the 19th through the 22nd.
Will the ministers’ conference be also held next year?
We will continue next year. The question is that we need to think about the concept of the program, the topics. Perhaps we will make it as probably a cocktail party and we are open to any suggestions here. Each minister wants to discuss his own country and I think it would be better if we do it as a presentation or maybe a good photo op for journalists to ask questions those ministers would like to meet.
Would you like to say something else?
Today is the second day of the show and there have been two successful days so far. We had around 50 thousand visitors already, which is really good statistics by 2:00 o’clock today. I think we will have more visitors this year than what we had last year. We are having reports on how many visitors have come to the show and we are going to have more than 80 thousand visitors definitely.
The weather is not great as always. We have to fight with the elements every year: snow, cold, freezing temperatures. I would like to say that the Russian market remains as profitable and lucrative as it has been for a few years and you can see a new reception here. I have been speaking to my clients over the past few days. It used to be the case that British and Germans tourists dominated as globe travelers, now it’s the BRIC countries, but for many Russian tourists they are more accessible because we don’t have any direct requirement, we can eat any food, we don’t need Chinese food for us to be happy, and most people speak decent English.
I think that Russian tourists are easy tourists to bring to your country and the economic situation of the country is good and is getting better every year. Last year we had 47 million people traveling abroad, which is an increase from 43 million people. We’ll have a decent growth each year if we continue to grow the same as now. We will be one of the largest outbound markets of the world. I would like to welcome all countries and business to come to MITT.
Why is MITT the best tourism show in Russia?
We celebrated 20 years this year. So, it’s been 20 years of success. This is one of the top five travel shows in the world. I would say it’s number three or number four. It’s the reputation and it’s a database of the Russian travel agents and tour operators, which we have operated for twenty years and we make sure that they all come to the exhibition for four days in March.
