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Fred Dixon, senior vice president of tourism and convention development, NYC & Company; Miguel Ángel Villanueva, deputy mayor for the City of Madrid; and Pablo Bautista, CEO of Tourism Madrid |
NYC & Company, the New York's marketing, tourism and partnership organization, will travel to Madrid this week with a tourism delegation to attend Feria Internacional de Turismo (FITUR) January 20–24. The purpose of the business trip will be to promote New York City to the Spanish market, the City's fifth-largest overseas market, and to highlight NYC & Company member companies while expanding NYC's reach to the international travel trade and media.
Fifteen co-exhibitors will accompany NYC & Company's tourism and communications staff on the five-day event, which takes place at the Feria de Madrid. During the show, NYC & Company will renew an agreement with the City of Madrid to promote travel between the two cities in 2010. NYC & Company will assist the City of Madrid in promoting the 100th anniversary of its Gran Vía in New York City, while Madrid tourism officials will help promote New York City's cultural vibrancy through an in-market promotion.
"FITUR is one of the year's most important trade shows," said Fred Dixon, senior vice president of tourism and convention development at NYC & Company. "Because of the dramatic growth in visitors' numbers from Spain to NYC over the last five years and the unprecedented number of NYC & Company members participating in this year’s show, we believe this collective effort will generate increased visibility for the City and help drive more tourism from our fifth-largest overseas market to NYC. We're also excited to renew our tourism agreement with the City of Madrid to help increase tourism between the two markets in 2010."
Recognized as the leading travel trade event for Spain, FITUR is a five-day meeting for tourism professionals to establish lines of action, strategies and business alliances, energizing and consolidating the tourism business in innovative ways to answer the changing demands of the market.
Last year, FITUR attracted more than 12,000 exhibiting companies from 170 countries and regions. More than 200,000 visitors, including 8,400 journalists, met to transform leisure into business and business into development for destinations that welcome millions of travelers.
NYC & Company partners attending FITUR include: Ar-Col Travel Arrangements, Inc.; Broadway Collection; Circle Line Sightseeing Cruises; CitySightsNY; Empire State Building Observatory; Hilton New York; InterContinental Hotels of New York; The London NYC; Millennium Broadway; New York Palace Hotel; NYC Marriott Hotels; Roger Smith Hotel; TEAMAMERICA; Top of the Rock and The Waldorf=Astoria.
New York City is the number one U.S. destination for Spanish travelers; in 2009 the City had a 63 pwexwnr market share of all travel from Spain to the United States, welcoming an estimated 364,000 Spanish visitors.