Post show report of the largest offline event of the year –MITT exhibition

The 27th International Travel Show MITT 2021, one of the five largest exhibitions worldwide, was successfully held March 16 through 18, 2021 at Crocus Expo.

In 2021, MITT for the first time deployed its exposition at Crocus Expo, showcasing 611 participants from 28 countries of the world and 52 regions of Russia. Over the three days of its operation, the exhibition was visited by 10,446 tourism industry specialists from 51 countries and 80 regions of Russia, and the visitor density tripled compared to 2019.

After long lockdowns and difficult times for the tourism industry, long-awaited meetings of the travel industry, new business acquaintances and networking took place at MITT. The activity at stands was complemented by creative presentations of topical tourism products, for added national flavor.

EXHIBITORS AT MITT 2021

Turkey, Greece, Abkhazia, Maldives, Catalonia, Malaysia, Nicaragua, Cuba, Thailand, Montenegro, Israel, Bulgaria, Saxony, Albania, and the city of Alma-Ata presented stands, new tourism products and services of the new season. More than 20 companies exhibited at the stand of Armenia, and Belarus, being traditionally popular with Russians, in response to the growing demand, came up with an expanded exposition. Foreign tourist operators included exhibitors from Kenya, Madagascar, Peru, India, Iran, Latvia, Italy, Chile, and other countries.

GOVERNMENTAL SUPPORT AND OPENING CEREMONY

The exhibition aroused great interest at the state and interstate levels. Rostourism held a two-day All-Russian meeting on tourism at the MITT site. In addition to this, agreements with the Russian Union of Travel Industry, a meeting of the Russian-Turkish Working Group on tourism and a round table of Rostourism with ANTOR took place.

On 16 March, the official opening ceremony of MITT was attended by foreign delegations, official representatives of state bodies of Russia, management of large companies, and heads of travel associations. Head of the Federal Agency for Tourism Zarina Doguzova gave a welcoming speech at the official opening ceremony of the exhibition, highlighting the importance of MITT as an event that allows industry professionals to meet in person after a long period of pandemic. Zarina Valerievna emphasized that MITT 2021 was the first largest tourism event in the Eurasian area to take place in the post-pandemic period.

PARTNERS OF MITT 2021

Despite the pandemic, foreign and Russian exhibitors showed great interest in the exhibition, prepared in advance, and paid special attention to additional promotion of their regions and countries. Exhibitors from all over the world presented their tourism opportunities at their stands. Greece was the partner country of MITT 2021. Turkey demonstrated tourism products at the largest stand of the exhibition, Altai Krai became the partner region of the exhibition for the seventh time.

MITT 2021 BUSINESS PROGRAM

The MITT business programme is renowned for its scale and quality of events. This year, more than 20 specialized events were held within the framework of the exhibition: from practical seminars to panel discussions, from foresight workshops to case parades. In just 3 days of the exhibition, 1,639 specialists attended the business programme events.

The key event of the exhibition was the First Forum of Tourism Industry Leaders.

One of the most anticipated and popular events among travel agents was the MITT Academy educational programme. For three days, seminars and master classes were held on key tracks: “Managing a travel agency”, “Effective marketing”, and “Advanced sales technologies”. The co-organizers of the events were the project travel-marketing.ru and Madison Consult.

The top draw of the business programme, MITT Digital conference traditionally was a full house. In the post-pandemic period, online business development will be a key success factor. This explains the great demand for the topic among tourism industry specialists and the attention to the event of representatives of leading companies: Yandex, Amadeus, TCH, Level.Travel, Sletat.ru, and others. The conference partners were Bronevik.com, B2B.Ostrovok.ru, DISCOVER CARS, and Tezeks. Assol.Cloud became a partner of the session “Technologies and products of startups for hoteliers”. The conference was co-organized by the Travel Startups community and the TravelHub conference.

Another key event was MITT MICE. The educational program of the conference brought together representatives of suppliers and buyers of MICE services. In 2021, in addition to participating in discussions, visitors also got the chance to choose the best hybrid project born of the pandemic, after presenting several contenders in the PechaKucha format. The event was co-organized by MICE Orchestra. The partners of the event were Baltma Tours DMC, Let me speak, and MICE TV.

All events of the business programme were full house.

Source: MITT

  • 14.04.2021

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