Madrid, January 22, 2020.
The 40th anniversary of FITUR, the essential event for the Spanish tourism sector and one of the most established internationally, is placing special emphasis this year on professional meetings. Given the rapid evolution of the tourism industry toward digital business, InterMundial has organized an innovative networking format between tourism companies and travel influencers : the Interconnect, Tourism Speed Dating, with the goal of boosting collaboration on joint projects.
The only B2i (Business to Influencers) event in a ‘speed dating’ format to be held at a tourism trade fair in Spain took place during the opening day of FITUR, this Wednesday the 22nd, at the InterMundial stand. The FITUR Director María Valcarce described the innovative networking ‘Interconnect, Tourism Speed Dating’“as highly useful for FITUR 2020 attendees”, noting that “the number of influencers attending the fair increases every year, as does their influence in the tourism industry”. The head of the fair predicts that innovative initiatives like this one, which provide a space for new industry players, “will have a notable and growing impact.”
Drawing on over 25 years of experience as a specialist in travel and sports insurance, InterMundial’s goal is to ‘connect’ companies and tourism promotion organizations with a category of brand advocates that is undoubtedly gaining weight in the industry: travel influencers. According to a report by data analytics firm Klear, influencer marketing grew by 49% last year and is solidifying its position as a key marketing trend for 2020.
For Manuel López, CEO of InterMundial, Interconnect is “the perfect setting to facilitate engagement and build synergies between both parties.” As the founder of the InterMundial Group reminds us, “we must not forget that influencers, bloggers, and travel writers are consumers of all types of tourism services firsthand. Therefore, their accounts based on their travel experiences to a specific destination have a huge impact on their readers and followers, who are, after all, an important part of the audience we are targeting”.
In this vein, InterMundial is once again following the example of other major international tourism fairs like the one in Berlin, where such professional meetings already existed, by making its more than 140-square-meter FITUR booth available to both tourism companies and influencers.
Successful participation
The ‘Interconnect, tourism speed dating’ format consisted of eight-minute ‘speed dates’ pre-arranged by the participants on the event website, based on mutual business interest. In short, these were agile professional meetings with travel influencers to facilitate synergies through the presentation of personalized proposals by the latter.
Thus, around 72 micro-meetings were held, spread across three rounds, which in turn were divided into three sessions of 8 parallel appointments each. The entire tourism sector was represented during the networkingsession. Destinations as diverse as Norway, the Czech Republic, Catalonia, Japan or Bogotá; travel agencies such as Paso Noroeste, Dominicana Tours or Biduzz; tourism service providers like Holafly, Bnext or RIA and specialized portals such as Escapadarural.com or Waynabox were some of the key players at Interconnect on the business side.
About InterMundial
InterMundial is a leading specialist in travel and sports insurance in Spain. It has offices in Spain's main tourist cities and 8 international commercial branches (Brazil, Colombia, Italy, France, Mexico, Poland, Portugal, and the United Kingdom).
-3.2 million policyholders every year.
-Over 6,500 partner points of sale.
-More than 700 phone inquiries handled every day.
-25,000 claims resolved each year.
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