This Wednesday, the well-known ITB tourism fair in Berlin has begun, in which Lanzarote is present once again to show the island's tourism proposal. Turismo Lanzarote attends the event with the objectives of "strengthening the positioning of the brand and boosting the destination in this market, the second most important international market for the island".
The President of the Canary Islands Government, Paulino Rivero, inaugurated the pavilion representing the archipelago. In a brief speech, Rivero assured that "in 2014, 31,264 jobs were created in the Canary Islands, many of them under the umbrella of the large tourism figures that were recorded in the islands." The president recalled that "we closed 2014 with a record figure, around 13 million tourists, with an increase of 8.8 percent in the German market" and confirmed that the data for January 2015 "are very good, with a rebound of 9 percent compared to the extraordinary January of 2014."
"In the German market," he concluded, "we expect to receive around three million tourists this year." In Rivero's opinion, to achieve these figures "the improvement of the archipelago's connectivity with Germany, the introduction of low-cost airlines and the support provided by the Canary Islands Government's Flight Fund for the implementation of new operators have been fundamental." Rivero, finally, encouraged those present to "continue working consistently on promotion to reinforce knowledge about the archipelago."
The Geopark and the Chinijo Archipelago, among the proposals presented
The President of the Cabildo of Lanzarote, Pedro San Ginés, acted as host of the space destined for Lanzarote during the tour of the autonomous executive's president through the Canary Islands stand. There, he presented the new material prepared for the promotion of the Lanzarote Geopark and the Chinijo Archipelago project, published in Spanish and German by the Cabildo of Lanzarote for the occasion.
In addition to various regional authorities, 22 students from the University School of Tourism of Lanzarote are also present at the fair, participating in an initiative that is now in its 20th edition and whom San Ginés greeted. The students have traveled to the fair on a trip co-organized by the educational center, the students themselves and Turismo Lanzarote. During their stay they are "getting to know firsthand" the internal workings of this tourism event, explained San Ginés.
In parallel, the work agenda of the Turismo Lanzarote team has begun first thing in the morning with the celebration of a meeting with Ednen Akan, from Shauninsland Reisen. Ahead, two intense days "with the aim of strengthening the positioning of the brand and boosting the destination in this market, the second most important international market for the island."
ITB 2015 hosts more than eleven thousand exhibitors from 185 countries from the five continents in more than 160,000 square meters of exhibition.
