Many are the fairs we attended in 2015. That’s the ones that stood out more for contents and organization.
BTO 2015
For the fourth year in a row we were technical partners of BTO that takes place in Florence.
Knowing that we support such an important event for the Italian and international tourism industry online through hosting the online ticket office is a source of pride for us.
Just like in the past, this edition of the BTO fair was divided into two parts: one area was destined to the stands of exhibitors, and one to presentations. The many topics covered included the importance of reputation, the sharing economy, and the consequences of the spread of mobile devices.
Our participation in the fair also consisted in providing technical assistance to participants with regard to the emission of the entrance badges to the fair area. Since our station was located at the entrance, we could meet and interact with many professionals and experts from all over Italy and gather their impressions of the tourism industry.
WTM London 2015
This year again we returned to London for the World Travel Market in search of new exclusive service offers for our customers and affiliates, and to start new forms of cooperation with other companies, both in Italy and abroad.
This fair also allowed us to meet with representatives of the major international portals and collect their advice on how to further improve our service.
The WTM is one of the largest and most important international fairs, which is why it attracts so many countries. Each of these does their very best to showcase their traditions and cultures and strolling through the stands, surrounded by colors, music and scents, gives the feeling of a journey around the world.
There are not only institutional exhibition stands, but also more technical ones, like those offering software for hotels, or those who develop smartphone apps.
In the dining areas, crossing paths with people often wearing traditional costumes of their own country and hearing conversations in unknown languages is not uncommon – and for a moment you feel as if you’re at the center of the world.
NYT Travel Show – Focus on Italy
We went back for a second time to the event organized by the New York Times to understand the trends of the US market and to follow the interesting lectures taking place simultaneously.
Like last year, Italy was the one country at the center of the conference, and as you can see from the picture, there was large audience participation. The relevant fact was that many of the people present had already been to Italy once or twice and yet were planning another trip. This tells us Italian operators a lot and gives us the right motivation to improve and update our work even more.
Having listened to the experts (none of whom were Italian) and the many questions asked by the participants we can make some interesting observations:
- one of the factors that most affects the choice of destination is cooking: Americans (and not only them) travel to the cities famous for their food;
- destination choices are not only the “classics”: listening to the questions, we had the impression that there were many people with a good knowledge of the so-called “minor” Italian cities, and that these are choices especially for those who plan a second or third trip to Italy;
- the influence that bloggers and journalists have on people who are planning a trip to Italy is strong – this is definitely an important indication for us at WiI because it reminds us how important dealing with these entities is.
We returned home from the NYT Travel Show with plenty of interesting ideas on how to improve the image we give of ourselves and of our work; so stay tuned because there will be lots of news.