Reed Travel Exhibitions (RTE), the world’s leading travel & tourism events organiser, is hosting a roadshow around Ecuador to help educate the country’s travel and tourism industry on new technology trends and innovations.
The RTE Talks roadshow – brought to Ecuador by two of RTE’s key portfolios; leisure portfolio World Travel Market and meetings and incentive portfolio IBTM – will include three events in major cities in July 2014.
The series of three talks entitled Travel Technology and new Meeting Industry Trends are being held in the cities of Ecuador – Guayaquil on 21st July, Cuenca on 23rd July and Quito on 25th July – with further plans to host RTE Talks in other countries around the world over the coming months.
The talks will help update and inform the Ecuadorian tourism and MICE industries how to best utilise new technologies, such as Google Glass. The invite-only RTE Talk will attract up to 30 suppliers from hotels, DMCs and venues along with 15 buyers from a range of tour operators, PCOs and incentive houses, all from the local market.
RTE plays a significant role in the development of the travel and MICE industries. It runs 23 events every year which act as the marketplace for the travel, tourism and MICE industries to negotiate and sign contracts. This in turn has a massive influence on where holidaymakers visit and business meetings and conferences take place. For example, World Travel Market, which takes place in London in November, facilitated business deals worth more than £2.2 billion – with Americas exhibitors benefiting from £585 million.
Ecuador is a key exhibitor at many of RTE’s events and is using RTE’s global portfolio of events to help increase tourists by 15% this year to 1.5 million, making tourism the third most important industry in terms of revenue generation for the country.
Speaking recently at a travel industry event, Vinicio Alvarado, Ecuador’s previous Tourism Minister stated that every 12 tourists who visit the country leads to one tourism job and that the government is working hard to improve infrastructure to support the tourism industry.
New Tourism Minister Sandra Naranjo is also encouraging tourism to the country, with the hope of making it a primary industry and becoming a major source of GDP.
Naranjo commented: “The axes of management are safety, destinations, quality, connectivity and promotion, in order to guarantee supply and tourism demand.”
Naranjo’s arrival within the Ministry of Tourism will bring fresh ideas to continue with the promotion of Ecuador and the idea to transform tourism in to the main source of non-oil revenues.
David Benitez, Reed Travel Exhibitions, RTE Talks Manager commented: “The Latin American markets are increasingly important for us especially the growing private sector. With the launch of WTM Latin America two years ago in Sao Paulo, Brazil and the new unique exclusive format for IBTM America 2015, the RTE Talks series comes at the ideal opportunity to meet with the Ecuadorian market and explain how RTE can support the industry and help it grow further.
“Ecuador is an important exhibitor at many of RTE’s events and it is vital that we engage personally with those In the profession face-to-face.. We believe that it is also important to help create an educational and networking platform where people can learn from one another and share best practices learnt from their respective professions.”
Speakers on the day will include David Benitez, RTE Talks and WTM Leisure Portfolio Sales Manager who successfully launched “IBTM Talks” in 2012, and Meeting Designer, Advisor, Trainer and Coach at Intercultural Management, Mike van der Vijver and Xavier Guardia, CEO of Mooveteam with his 20 years’ experience in the design and management of future emerging technology products, including GloogleGlass apps.
For further information on RTE Talks please contact David.benitez@reedexpo.co.uk
