“I am confident that the deal will go through and that it will be good for us and Aer Lingus,” Luis Gallego, Iberia’s Chief Executive, said last week in Madrid when he met Irish travel media attending FITUR with Gonzalo Ceballos, Director, Spanish Tourism Office.
“The Aer Lingus hub in Dublin, combined with BA’s in London, Iberia’s in Madrid, and Vueling’s in Barcelona, will provide excellent long-haul connections worldwide from and to Europe.”
The 35th FITUR business and promotion forum for the world tourism industry, currently on in Madrid until 1st February, is organised by IFEMA and supported by the UN World Tourism Organisation and the Spanish Ministry of Industry, Energy and Tourism. FITUR attracts 200,000 visitors from around the world, including 120,000 professionals, and generates benefits for the city estimated at more than €200 million, and this year has 9,107 represented companies from 165 countries and regions.
New sections this year are devoted to Shopping and Health, which join others that focus on Hosted Buyers, Know How & Export, Fiturtech, Green, Investour Africa, and Gay (LGBT) – which this year is announcing the staging of the World Pride in Madrid in 2017.
The FITUR B2B Hosted Buyers workhop provides an intense programme of personal, previously scheduled appointments between participating companies and a broad selection of international guest buyers. In 2014 more than 1,600 appointments were scheduled, with 250 participants and 132 buyers from 35 countries.
