MICE Conversations: a podcast for the Meetings, Incentive Travel, Conferences and Events industry
MICE Conversations: a podcast for the Meetings, Incentive Travel, Conferences and Events industry
#9: 'MICE Conversations' - FITUR Madrid 2021
#9: 'MICE Conversations' - FITUR Madrid, May 2021. In this episode I attend FITUR Madrid, the first major travel trade event to place in Europe since the pandemic. FITUR 2021 took place at IFEMA Madrid, May 19-23rd 2021. Interviewed are IFEMA's Director General Eduardo Lopez Puertas and Juan Daniel Nunez, Editor of Smart Travel News.
Useful links for FITUR and Smart Travel News.
https://www.ifema.es/en/fitur
https://www.ifema.es/portal-transparencia/informacion-institucional-organizativa/eduardo-lopez-puertas-bitaube
https://www.smarttravel.news
This vidoe and podcast was recorded May 19th 2021, at FITUR in Madrid.
This pocast is also available as a video, on the TravelMedia.ie YouTube channel.
https://youtu.be/rnvnhOL4UtQ
Topics and questions, timeline or video chapters.
00:00 - Intro and welcome, Michael Collins, MD TravelMedia.ie
01:09 - IFEMA Director General Eduardo Lopez Puertas.
05:28 - Juan Daniel Nunez, Editor of Smart Travel News
Transcript:
- Hello and welcome. This is Michael Collins here from TravelMedia.ie and MICE Conversations. Today we are doing things a little bit differently, instead of a Zoom recording. I am coming to you from FITUR in Madrid. FITUR is the first major travel conference to take place here in Europe since the start of the pandemic. So during the course of FITUR I will talk to the Director General of IFEMA who are the hosts of FITUR, and also to Smart Travel News, a travel trade publication here at Madrid. What's important as you see images of FITUR taking place is not numbers but the fact that the FITUR is actually taking place. This is the first event as I said earlier to take place again in the travel industry. The first major event. The fact that it is open it is running and it is successful. And the fact that they have tested everybody who has come into the exhibition grounds is crucially important. Others will be following this. Others will watch and learn from it. ITB, IBTM, World Travel Market, ITB Asia, will all be watching to see how successful FITUR Madrid 2021 is.
- We are in a venue called IFEMA which re-opens after almost one year of having it closed. And we're celebrating the most important tourism fair in Spain, which is FITUR. This is the first international fair that it's made in Europe. And we are very happy as far as you know, we have lots of international guests coming. We have almost 43% of our exhibitors are international. And we feel that we have really re-opened our venue and that this we would like to be the first upon a lot of fairs to be done within this year. After the first day, we've seen that we had 15,000 people that came yesterday essentially. but also we have 25,000 people that digitally were connected. So, we're very happy. We see that there's a very good atmosphere within the venue. We see people that are making business and we see that we have started. Everybody getting into our venue need to pass COVID test. We have launched a special app for them to be able to do it here, if necessary or if they can with it, that will be valid as well. But, we're very happy. It has worked very well and we've had no complaints which is a very good point, you know because everybody's very aware that with these new normality that is needed. The measures we have applied for making this fair has been very strict. So we don't have lanyards on paper every everything is digital. So once you get here, you need to pass through the gates and that's connected to your PCR test. So if that's okay, you can get in. If not, you're not allowed to. Then the special measures, we have 50% of the total capacity and we have restricted that to that. We are measuring also when people just conglomerate in certain areas. We also have a special a measure, of course you know wearing face masks and the liquids are necessary to be here. And then, especially for food they must be carried.....................
- Hello and welcome. This is Michael Collins here from TravelMedia.ie and MICE Conversations. Today we are doing things a little bit differently, instead of a Zoom recording. I am coming to you from FITUR in Madrid. FITUR is the first major travel conference to take place here in Europe since the start of the pandemic. So during the course of FITUR I will talk to the Director General of IFEMA who are the hosts of FITUR, and also to Smart Travel News, a travel trade publication here at Madrid. What's important as you see images of FITUR taking place is not numbers but the fact that the FITUR is actually taking place. This is the first event as I said earlier to take place again in the travel industry. The first major event. The fact that it is open it is running and it is successful. And the fact that they have tested everybody who has come into the exhibition grounds is crucially important. Others will be following this. Others will watch and learn from it. ITB, IBTM, World Travel Market, ITB Asia, will all be watching to see how successful FITUR Madrid 2021 is.- We are in a venue called IFEMA which re-opens after almost one year of having it closed. And we're celebrating the most important tourism fair in Spain, which is FITUR. This is the first international fair that it's made in Europe. And we are very happy as far as you know, we have lots of international guests coming. We have almost 43% of our exhibitors are international. And we feel that we have really re-opened our venue and that this we would like to be the first upon a lot of fairs to be done within this year. After the first day, we've seen that we had 15,000 people that came yesterday essentially. but also we have 25,000 people that digitally were connected. So, we're very happy. We see that there's a very good atmosphere within the venue. We see people that are making business and we see that we have started. Everybody getting into our venue need to pass COVID test. We have launched a special app for them to be able to do it here, if necessary or if they can with it, that will be valid as well. But, we're very happy. It has worked very well and we've had no complaints which is a very good point, you know because everybody's very aware that with these new normality that is needed. The measures we have applied for making this fair has been very strict. So we don't have lanyards on paper every everything is digital. So once you get here, you need to pass through the gates and that's connected to your PCR test. So if that's okay, you can get in. If not, you're not allowed to. Then the special measures, we have 50% of the total capacity and we have restricted that to that. We are measuring also when people just conglomerate in certain areas. We also have a special a measure, of course you know wearing face masks and the liquids are necessary to be here. And then, especially for food they must be carried in into individual packages. So we are not allowed to do that. And everybody eating must be seated, that's another point. On the external sides you can have tables of six, internally you must be four, that's a maximum, but, you know with all these restrictions, I think people are very happy, that today this is our reality. We have more than 63 countries represented here in IFEMA but it's true that also, we have many people flying from different parts of the world and we have people from Philippines, from South America from Africa and that makes it more interesting. And that's a big point. It's been a real challenge to start this exhibition but it's true that a Spanish government has helped a lot. Also the local authorities and the sanitary authorities. It was declared FITUR as essential travel. And that's very important because that banned all the restrictions that we had for several countries. So once that's approved and with the Foreign Affairs Ministry, that came a reality and then we were able to receive so many visitors from very different countries. This is the first step I think in Europe for exhibition to world, I think it's very important that we have demonstrated that it is possible. We need to have special security measures and sanitary measures, but we can provide a safe and secure environment here. And we are back. That's the best point we are back and we would like to restart again. It's very important for the rest of the venues, all around Europe to start really making fairs, making congresses and making events. We are very happy for that.- It's great to be back at FITUR. And when you talk with the rest of the industry because we've been in touch, you know, online, with all the video conferences and interviews, but we kinda needed this. With the human touch, seeing each other again and having all the conferences here. So we know we are very aware that really it's a weird FITUR but just the fact that it's happening, I think everyone agrees that it's a great news for us. And you can see all the bigger spaces now between the booths and stands and everything. We are very aware that it's a very different FITUR, but still, I mean, especially the first two days I think were particularly busy in some booths. So that's great news and that's a very good sign that everyone was eager to do business again, to be back on track again. So today, Friday to be slowlier. But I think in overall it's been a great experience even for business. This is the first big travel event in Europe post COVID let's say, and you can see it can be done. I mean, we've done tests. We all have our mask and our social distancing and you know, vaccines are going way faster now, especially if for us in Spain, which we've been slowly on the beginning now it's way up. So you kinda feel like we've been like the worst is behind us. And now it's just a question of time that we're back on track. We of course are aware that it's not going to be just a matter of weeks but we hope that this is gonna be a good summer and next summer we'll be business as usual.