Panama’s Tourism Minister Iván Eskildsen and Zurab Pololikashvili – Picture by UNWTO.
19-23 May 2021, Madrid, Kingdom of Spain: Their Most Catholic Majesties King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia opened the 41st FITUR (Feria Internacional de Turismo). The Royal Couple was received upon their arrival at the Juan Carlos I Trade Fair Park by the Prime Minister of Georgia (guest of honour), Irakli Garibashvili; the President of the Community of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso; the Spanish Minister of Industry, Trade and Tourism, Reyes Maroto; the Secretary-General of the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), Zurab Pololikashvili; and the Mayor of Madrid, José Luis Martínez-Almeida.
The King and Queen were then greeted by the presidents of the Autonomous Communities of Andalusia, Juan Manuel Moreno; of Cantabria, Miguel Ángel Revilla; of La Rioja, Concepción Andreu; of Murcia, Fernando López Miras; of Castilla-La Mancha, Emiliano García-Page; of the Canary Islands, Ángel Víctor Torres; of the Balearic Islands, Francina Armengol, amongst other authorities.
Once the tour was over, the King and Queen were greeted by the FITUR Organising Committee and by the Ministers of Tourism attending the inauguration. Amongst those attending were the Mexico’s Tourism Secretary, Miguel Torruco Marqués; Director General Mynor Cordón from Guatemalan Institute of Tourism (INGUAT); Dominican Republic’s Tourism Minister David Collado and the founder of Punta Cana Frank Rainieri; the Argentine’s Minister of Tourism and Sports, Matías Lammens; Greek Tourism Minister Harry Theoharis; Trade, Tourism and Telecommunications of Serbia, Tatjana Matić; Jamaica’s Tourism Minister Edmund Bartlett; Croatian State Secretary for Tourism, Tonči Glavina; Albanian Tourism Minister Blendi Klosi; Chairman of the St. Petersburg’s Tourism Committee, Sergey Korneev; The Gambia’s Tourism Minister, Hamat Bah; Panama’s Tourism Minister, Iván Eskildsen; Peru’s Foreign Trade and Tourism Minister, Claudia Cornejo Mohme; Mozambique’s Tourism Minister, Eldevina Materula; Ghana’s Tourism Minister, Mohammed Ibrahim Awal; the Vice President for Tourism at ProColombia, Gilberto Salcedo Ribero,…etc.
The International Tourism Trade Fair – FITUR is the premier annual event for world tourism professionals and the leading trade fair for inbound and outbound markets in Ibero-America. In the 2020 edition FITUR has broken participation records with 11,040 companies from 165 countries/regions, 150,011 professionals and 111,089 visitors from the general public.
FITUR 2021, in its special edition Tourism is back, was held from 19 to 23 May, and was the first major experience of safe international mobility in Spain, which seeks to relaunch tourism globally and consolidate Spain as a prescriber of safe tourism.
Technology, the future and sustainability, and specialisation will continue to be the main themes of FITUR, in addition to the promotion of actions aimed at increasing professionalism, representativeness and internationality. FITUR will address, in a cross-cutting manner, issues such as Big Data, artificial intelligence, smart destinations, start-ups, etc. In addition, the launch of the FITUR Next observatory acts as a guide to identify the tourism trends of the future and project those guidelines that generate a positive impact for visitors, residents, destinations and the planet, in the economic, social, cultural and environmental spheres.
Each year the Fair brings together experts in a variety of disciplines to share knowledge, experiences and concerns.
For further information:
UNWTO: https://www.unwto.org/news/unwto-gives-voice-to-the-initiatives-of-the-private-sector-at-fitur-2021
Spanish Royal Household: https://www.casareal.es/ES/Actividades/Paginas/actividades_actividades_detalle.aspx?data=14882
