What is COTAL?
Founded with a view to stand up for the interests of Latin American travel agents, the Confederation of Latin American Tourist Organizations is turning 46 years old with a strong commitment to the regional market and working harder everyday to both meet the area’s needs and advertise its tourist beauties all around the world.
The organization huddles a number of Latin American travel agencies and tourism associations as full members, plus several affiliates embracing independent operators, tourist official institutions, transportation companies, hotels, car rentals, specialized news media and other companies linked to the leisure sector.
COTAL is scheduled to hold its 47th Congress and Tourism Fair next year in Mexico’s Cancun.
Its institutional presence –represented by a Commission of Directors democratically elected- seeks to put all market segments in sync with one another not only from a commercial and corporate standpoint, but also in line with tourism’s overall situation with an all-embracing scope. This will allow the sector to further turn into a source of social and economic development, as well as a showcase all of Latin America’s cultural, heritage and natural wealth.
In order to ease this daily job, COTAL has branched out in two institutions that permit to heed specialization in each and every area in a much closer and more accurate way. That’s how COVAL and COSUTAL were spun off.
The former is charged with defending the interests of experts and marketers from travel agencies, as well as to encourage recognition and development within the market. OVAL provides associates with technical and judicial counseling. It also pieces together specific tools for sector professionals to upgrade their daily going and stand on equal competitive footing with their peers from other parts of the globe.
As far as COSUTAL is concerned, it was thought up with a view to meet the needs of governmental tourism offices and ministries, national and regional tourist corporations, tourist financial organizations, hotel and lodging companies, transportation firms and all service providers outside the travel agencies. This is the institution responsible for the advertisement of regional destinations and joint collaboration between the private and public sectors. COSUTAL also endorses and supports the foundation and development of national entities clustering tourist enterprises. Likewise, it fosters general training in an effort to raise up to today’s expectations and standards within the tourist industry.
