From September 10 to 12, the 25th anniversary International Forum and Exhibition on Tourism OTDYKH Leisure 2019 was held in Moscow.
The partner country of the forum is Cuba, the partner region is the Komi Republic, the official partner is the Mriya Resort & Spa hotel.
35 people took part in the exhibition countries of the world, including traditionally India, Thailand, Egypt, Morocco, China and European countries, as well as 41 regions of Russia, which presented their tourist routes and projects for Russian and foreign specialists and direct clients.
The total number of participants in OTDYKH Leisure 2019 was 579 companies.
During the 3 days of work, national offices and regional tourism administrations, tour operators, hotels, resorts, airlines, medical and SPA centers, health resorts, transport and other companies of the tourism industry demonstrated their tourist offers and innovations, the stands of which were received by 14,897 visitors of the exhibition.
Visitors got acquainted with the possibilities of beach, ski, health resort, gastronomic and other types of tourism, talked with specialists to establish business contacts. Direct clients were able to choose a suitable vacation option for the upcoming season.
The exhibition featured special expositions: Medical Tourism, Spa & Health; Travel Technology & Startups; Museum Gallery of Cultural Objects from Different Regions of Russia; Craft Quarter with the participation of folk art and craft enterprises.
An extremely interesting exposition was offered by the official partner of the exhibition, the MRIYA RESORT & SPA resort complex. Its general manager Samvel Sarukhanyan said: “We consider our key tasks to be establishing high-quality contact and dialogue with industry representatives and partners, receiving valuable feedback from the regions in order to remain as sensitive as possible to the expectations of guests. This will facilitate a detailed study of requests for medical tourism due to the great interest in this holiday destination in Crimea.”
The opening ceremony was attended by State Secretary — Deputy Minister of Culture of the Russian Federation — Alla Manilova, Deputy Chairman of the Federation Council Committee on Social Policy Igor Fomin, Advisor to the Head of the Federal Agency for Tourism — Elena Lysenkova, Vice President of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the Russian Federation — Maxim Fateev, President of the Russian Union of Travel Industry — Sergey Shpilko, Executive Director of ATOR — Maya Lomidze, Ambassador of the Republic of Cuba (partner country of the exhibition) to Russia Gerardo Peñalver Portal, Minister of Culture, Tourism and Archives of the Komi Republic (partner region of the exhibition) — Sergey Yemelyanov, Director of the Department of Regional Development of the Executive Directorate of the Russian Geographical Society Sergey Korlykhanov, General Director of the organizer of the forum-exhibition "OTDYKH Leisure" — Euroexpo LLC — Kirill Anisimov.
The business program of the forum-exhibition continued with the Plenary Session “A New Look at the Tourism Industry”, which was attended by tourism business specialists from 60 regions of Russia.
"Creative industry based on heritage in tourism"; "Digitalization as the main trend of the tourism industry"; "Sochi - a tourism brand of Russia"; "Legal aspects of work in the tourism industry", "Strategy for the development of hotel chains" - this is a very short list of what was discussed in the Big, Small and Travel arenas on the first day of the exhibition.
The second day of the business program was devoted to territorial marketing, IT solutions in tourism, medical and health tourism. Industry experts discussed how small Russian cities can define a niche and win the attention of tourists, talked about investments in the tourism sector and new trends in business tourism.
On the final day of the forum-exhibition, the top topics of discussion were event tourism and the volunteer movement. Experts discussed the impact of significant events — the Sochi Olympics (2014) and the FIFA World Cup (2018) — on domestic and inbound tourism, volunteer contributions, and the potential of tourist destinations. "Industrial Tourism in the Arctic (in Taimyr)," "Educational Tourism for the New Generation," "Reality and Prospects of Ecotourism" — these and other topics drew full houses of listeners.
All three days of the business program for professional visitors included a Business School, where specialists received answers to questions on the legal aspects of working in the industry, digital marketing and financial aspects of activities in tourism.
For effective presence at the exhibition, exhibitors and professional visitors used updated services. Sections of the new online catalog provided detailed information about each company participating in the exhibition. The Matchmaking system, which has firmly established itself in world exhibition practice, thanks to the service partner - the Skolkovo Technopark, made it possible to schedule business meetings in advance and at a convenient time. In total, 430 meetings and business negotiations were held in the Business Zone of the exhibition over 3 days.
The top executives of regional companies visited the exhibition under the special program "B2B Hosted Buyers", which was attended by representatives from St. Petersburg and Sochi, Yekaterinburg and Chelyabinsk, Izhevsk and Volgograd and other regions of Russia.
One of the landmark events of the exhibition was the Award Ceremony for the winners of the video contest "Hello, Russia - My Homeland!". The partners of the contest were the TV channel "Let's Go!", "Channel One. World Wide Web". This year, a record number of video works took part in the contest. 104 videos from 30 regions of Russia and three countries competed for the title of the most creative and informative in 7 nominations. You can see the list of winners of the contest on the website.
Plan in your work schedule the leading event of the autumn-winter season next year - the 26th International Forum-Exhibition on Tourism Leisure from September 8 to 10, 2020!
Source: trn-news.ru
