ICT Press Release – September marked the beginning of international tourism fairs, which have become a showcase for the promotion of Costa Rica around the world. This year alone, the Costa Rican Tourism Board (Spanish initials: ICT) along with other tourism companies, participated in 14 meetings held in the main tourism source markets for Costa Rica in North America, South America and Europe.

Muricio Ventura, Minister of Tourism, explained that the international fairs offer a unique opportunity to the Costa Rican businessmen and women to establish an important contact network for their businesses and promote their tourism services and products to wholesalers, business travelers, meeting and incentive organizers, as well as those tourists interested in traveling alone.

“The ICT has developed an International Fair Program which has become, for more than 30 years, the platform for tourism marketing of many companies that cannot attend these types of global events with their own resources. This is why, the Board ensures its participation in the main international fairs to position the country as a world-class tourism destination,” highlighted Ventura.

Those businesses interested in attending these marketing fairs must have the Tourist Declaration of the Certification for Sustainable Tourism (CST), awarded by the ICT.

Approximately 75% of the participating tourism companies have the CST, which reinforces the vision of the country by promoting the Sustainable Tourism Development Model whose cornerstone is sustainability.

Participation of Private Sector Businesses: The participation trend for private sector businesses is growing and such is the case that in 2014, there was a participation of more than 180 people from across 75 private sector businesses, representing an increase of 4.4% in comparison with the previous year.

Interactive Participation in Fairs: The global communication platform of the international fairs allow interaction and communication in real time through social media months prior to the beginning of the fair, in this manner the participants can carry out the purchase of the services, kiosks, and receive in detail what is offered at the fairs before their arrival to the headquarters of the global meeting.

Currently, there are kiosks with the latest technology in social media, allowing for public interaction in real time with actions that include: photo mosaic on Instagram, screens that show Twitter messages and printing of photographs with the Costa Rica hashtag, among others.

Benefits of Participating in International Fairs

International fairs, in addition to becoming a platform for the generation of business and strategic alliances for the companies, also create spaces that allow the collection of information on important trends in the priority and rising markets, which will contribute significantly when making decisions at an institutional level such as the private sector.

In 2014-2015, the Costa Rican Board participated in 250 meetings between Board representatives and commercial partners (wholesalers and airlines) and addressed 89 communication media outlets, as part of the strategic actions carried out at the fairs, to position the country in different markets.

International Fair Season Begins
For 2015-2016, the Costa Rican Tourism Board, along with over 80 Costa Rican businesses, will be attending 14 international tourism fairs, including World Routes, Top Resa IFTM, ABAV, Travel Mart Latin America and Termatalia in September.

World Routes: A tourism fair specialized in the airline sector. Its objective is to promote rapport with the airlines whose potential for travel to the country is very high, carry out presentations on the destination, and strengthen commercial relations with airlines that currently fly to the country. Thus complementing the actions that the ICT is implementing to guarantee airline attraction to Costa Rica.

On this occasion, the event expects the participation of more than 2,500 international delegates, 250 airlines, 650 airlines, and 170 tourism institutes worldwide, as well as conducting 8,000 business meetings.

This fair will be held from September 19th thru the 22nd in Durban, a South African city in the KwaZulu-Natal province, on the shores of the Indian Ocean.

Top Resa IFTM: A tourism fair specialized on the French professionals segment, one of the priority markets of the country. This fair gathers more than 29,000 professionals from 160 countries with 1,200 brands and 348 stands. This fair will be held from September 29th thru October 2nd, at the Porte de Versailles Salon, in Paris, France.

ABAV: A Brazilian Travel Agents Association fair mainly directed towards wholesale travel agencies in Brazil and Latin America. It also opens a space so that the general public can visit the event.

The AVAB international fair has been become an effective and dynamic business event, as this association groups 80% of the Brazilian travel agency market, which makes it the largest and most important agency network in the country. This fair will be held from September 23rd thru the 27th in Sao Pablo, Brazil, at the Anhembi Park fair ground.

Travel Mart Latin America: A fair for the meeting of hotel services, airlines, receptive operators providers, tourism offices, city and convention offices and other promotion organizations in all Central and South America. These businesses will present their offers to all global markets, especially the US, Canada, Latin America, Europe and Asia-Pacific. The event will be held September 23rd thru the 25th at the Parque de la Industria in Guatemala City.

Termatalia: For the first time, Costa Rica will participate in the specialized fair for wellness tourism, having as its objective the positioning of the country in this important tourism product. The ICT will assist the event that will be held September 24th thru the 26th in Ourense, Galicia, Spain.