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The 31st edition of BIT – International Tourism Exchange confirms in Italy its role as a hub at the service of tourism and refines its B2B heart by providing exhibitors with an innovative marketing intelligence tool that can make the trade fair moment more effective in terms of business. Conceived for foreign exhibitors, but also useful for Italian exhibitors, the Italian Market Overview reveals a whole scenario and valid keys to make suitable business considerations and identify appropriate liaisons and partners on the Italian market.
The study highlights the potential of the Italian tourist market that, with about 57,700,000 trips abroad in 2009 (slightly more than the year before, thus confirming a positive trend) and with a spending capacity for holidays that places Italy sixth in the world, is confirmed as being of absolute interest to commercial evaluations.
Looking at some significant figures, in the document we can see that in 2009, Lombardy is the region of origin of 30% of Italian travellers abroad, followed by Friuli Venezia Giulia with 14%, and these two regions generate respectively more than 24 million and 6.6 million stays.
And further, the top three foreign destinations favored by Italians in terms of number of stays are still France (about 31 million stays), Spain (19 million) and USA (almost 15 million), the destinations where Italians spend the most are Germany, the United States, the United Kingdom, followed by France, China and Italy.
Instead, on the theme of trends, important market segments like honeymoons are confirmed. With an increase in interest in southern African countries like Kenya, Tanzania, South Africa extending to the Seychelles or Madagascar, and increasing demand for luxury products, the honeymoon package has an average value of between 5,000 and 10,000 euros and in 76% of cases it is booked through travel agencies. And although the business travel sector records a year of historical difficulty – with 7.5% less and 2.5 million trips less – the crisis has not affected “luxury” trips and cruises, with 23.8 million passengers and a 9% growth.
Data and information about the distribution and a breakdown on the use of the Internet and e-commerce in tourism, along with a showcase on the world of communication and the Italian media, complete the overview.
“The role of the fair of the future is to guarantee not only excellent infrastructures but also to play a strategic consulting role and providing exhibitors with a quality network, giving them marketing intelligence services that help them make the most of the opportunities the market offers”, stresses Marco Serioli, Executive Director Fiera Milano Rassegne, who continues: “BIT is backed by a solid tradition and great expertise in the tourist area: given that, we propose ourselves in the brand new role of consultants and we are focusing on innovative services and marketing projects to use, in order to provide targeted support to exhibitors so they can get the highest return on their investment”.
Theodore is the Co-Founder and Managing Editor of TravelDailyNews Media Network; his responsibilities include business development and planning for TravelDailyNews long-term opportunities.
