August, 2014 – With two months to go before the ribbon cutting ceremony, TTG Incontri – the main b2b Tourism Fair in Italy -, has almost finalised the details of the new features that will characterise the 51st edition, scheduled in Rimini Fiera for October 9 to 11.
Dario Franceschini, the Italian Minister for Culture and Tourism, has been invited to inaugurate the exhibition.
An ever richer and more articulate fair event, TTG Incontri will once again host IBE – International Bus Expo, the only marketplace for the bus sector, this year in its 6th edition – and, for the first time, the fair will take place together with Sia Guest – the International Hospitality Exhibition which for 63 years now has been decoding and orienting the trends of the hotel supply chain.
TTG Incontri will host over 130 destinations, many of which have chosen this fair as their only trade event in Italy, and about 1000 buyers coming from 60 Countries worldwide, with a high concentration of operators coming from the Mediterranean area, India, United States and Brazil.
In 2013 TTG Incontri registered an attendance of 52,000 people in two and a half days of exhibition.
EGYPT, Partner Country 2014
After Argentina in 2013, this year TTG Incontri’s Partner Country will be Egypt. The destination, committed to an intense and relentless relaunch phase in the tourism field, has chosen TTG Incontri to strengthen its exposure in the Italian market as well as in the international markets, and has programmed a set of high-impact initiatives for trade visitors, exhibitors, national and international press and bloggers from all over the world attending the exhibition.
“Our participation in the next TTG incontri – says Mohamed Abdel Gabbar, director of the Egypt Tourism Authority office in Italy – aims to continue the all-round promotion of the Country, but mostly wishes to reaffirm once again that Egypt is a safe and secure destination, ready to welcome tourists with the usual warmth and hospitality. Italy is a very important market for us and we want it to re-establish its role as leading incoming market for Egypt. Our choice to take part in TTG Incontri is due to the fact that this is one of the most important trade fairs in Italy and we are sure it will keep on growing even more “.
TTG Next: innovation and new ideas for Tourism
TTG Next is the exhibition area within TTG Incontri dedicated to innovation. The initiative – which saw its debut last year with a large area dedicated to tourism start-up companies, carried out in collaboration with Italia StartUp and under the patronage of Mise (Ministry for Economic Development) -, has some important new features in store this year. For the first time a trade fair will host a competition of ideas for innovation. Innovation Marathon @TTG is a light version of a hackathon, with a format exclusively designed for TTG Incontri by H-Farm and Travel Appeal, where 150 young innovators will set themselves the objective of finding new business solutions for the 3 themes emerging from the survey carried out by TTG Italia on the operators of the whole tourism supply chain.
The TTG Next 2014 project is signed by TTG Italia, in collaboration with Italia Start Up, Associazione Start Up Turismo, Travel Appeal and Find your Italy.
THE BIRTH OF THE FIRST DIGITAL OBSERVATORY ON TOURISM: run by the Politecnico di Milano
The School of Management of the Politecnico di Milano will be at TTG Incontri for the preview presentation of the data by the first Digital Observatory on Tourism. The Observatory focuses on the use of digital tools and on the key role these have now taken on in the management of international tourism flows.
With the coming of Smartphones and Tablets, digital services to tourists are indeed becoming an indispensable tool, also thanks to the many applications used by millions of Italians, such as: eReputation, Digital Payments, Shared resources, Mobile Commerce & Ticketing, Mobile Marketing, etc.
The Observatory will focus on the surveys regarding e-Commerce Consumer, Mobile Economy, Mobile Marketing & Service, Mobile Payment & Commerce, New Internet & Media.
PREVIEW OF WORLD TOURISM DATA AT TTG INCONTRI
Organised in collaboration with London’s World Travel Market, the Conference hosted by TTG Incontri will give a preview presentation to the Italian audience of the international tourism data processed by Euromonitor, with forecasts until 2018. Under the microscope will be the future performances by the emerging countries, which rank travel third among the most coveted purchase products, after new technologies and clothing.
The Euromonitor surveys show that the market is now ripe at the global level and is therefore settling, with very slim progressions from now to 2018 in terms of the volume of travellers handled and of GDP generated. Cruises and medical tourism turn out to be the products that, by the end of this decade, will attract significant segments of the demand, whereas bus travel will remain steady and the request for national parks will decrease. As far as searching and selling tourism products is concerned, the run-up of Smartphones will carry on steadily, with a sharp preponderance over tablets, laptops and desktops.
BUYER MED: a marketplace to sell the Mediterranean in the world
World tourism keeps on growing: this is what emerges from the latest World Tourism Barometer by Unwto-Omt, which specifies that international arrivals in the world during 2013 have increased by 5 percentage points. Leading the European growth are the Mediterranean Countries, with + 6.1%, and at TTG Incontri the tourism offer from this area will have the chance to meet a very interested demand.
For the first year indeed, the exhibition will host about 200 international buyers specialised in selling the Mediterranean in their markets of reference. Over 300 sellers are expected to take part, subdivided between destinations and private operators based in the different Countries of the Mediterranean area.
THEMED ISLANDS: areas dedicated to ‘made in Italy’ Food, Wellness and Culture
Following the appreciative reaction of the market last year, this year too the Italy Pavilions will host three themed islands dedicated to three outstanding segments of the Italian tourism offer: Wine&Food, Spa&Wellness and Cultural Tourism.
A logistic solution which facilitates meetings with the exhibitors and meets the specific needs of a strongly motivated and product-oriented demand. Over a thousand international buyers coming from 60 Countries will take part in the negotiations at the stands. During the 2013 edition of TTG Incontri, the Themed Islands have scored over 13,000 speed networking sessions, reaffirming their importance for the promotion of Italian tourism in the world.
TBD-ITALY: international bloggers meet at TTG
TTG Incontri will count on the presence of over 300 bloggers coming from all over the world for the second edition of Travel Blogger Destination Italy, the successful event launched last year by TTG Italia to create constructive relationships between tourism operators and the major experts in social media and storytelling. Among the new features for 2014 are the Technical Committee and the involvement of new types of bloggers.
Travel will no longer be the sole protagonist: Food, Culture and Fashion will also be in the spotlight. The new ‘speed date’ feature entails an uninterrupted series of meetings between bloggers and exhibitors (destinations, tour operators, hoteliers) making up the Meet Your Blogger Day, one whole day of full immersion into the social world, which is becoming always more influential in orienting the opinions and the choices of tourists/travellers.
TTG Lab: over 50 hours of training for tourism professionals
Thanks to a rich programme of refresher and specialised seminars aimed at tourism professionals, TTG Incontri reasserts its leading role as observer of the market, attentive to the evolution of the sector and always ready to create exchange opportunities which are functional – in their shape and content – to the new needs of professionals.
TTG Lab – a consolidated and highly appreciated appointment in the working calendar – offers, for the first time ever, the prestigious Reload! Formula based on a set of lectio magistralis held by some of the major Italian experts in product development, marketing and communication. The lectures will shed light on the future market tendencies, and in particular on the trends in the demand, on the social media and omni-channel future scenarios, on business communication and intermediation. For further in-depth analysis of these themes, alongside TTG Lab Reload! are the TTG Lab Online Marketing domains – dedicated to marketing and web-sales techniques – and TTG Lab Hospitality – oriented to the world of accommodation and hospitality.
TTG Reload!: a set of seminars to get back in the game and rethink tourism
The idea is to propose change on more than one front: starting with the people, then moving on to the companies and finally reaching the product. What TTG Lab Reload! offers tourism professionals is a total reconsideration of the tourism supply chain through a set of seminars held by world renowned experts in innovation, communication and offline and online marketing.
Each lecture, taking the shape of a 90 minute lectio magistralis, is a step in a training course that is related to innovation, and each lecture can suggest visions as well as instructions which can be useful to reconstruct one’s personal brand and brand identity, adapting them to the current needs. All this not forgetting the innovative management of language, of trademarks, of communities and of times of crisis, with a useful glance on the possible future scenarios of the post-social universe.
Numerous and prestigious speakers will share their experience with the audience: Alessandro Lucchini, famous Business Writer; Maria Grazia Turri, economist and philosopher; Gaetano Grizzanti, expert in brand identity; Domitilla Ferrari, digital strategist; Sebastiano Gambera, International Practitioner in neuro-linguistic programming; Luigi Centenaro, first Italian Personal Branding Strategist; Laura Rolle, expert in new trends and in semeiotics of marketing applied to tourism; Alessandro Giacchino, expert in multi-channel marketing ; Jamil Ouazzani, specialist in Audit Marketing and Big Data.
