MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency
Falklands in travel brochures of world's main tourist operators
At least twenty one tourism buyer companies from Europe, America and Oceania present at the latest convention of Travel Mart Latin America held in Ecuador, have listed the Falkland Islands in their operating profiles.
"Last year was the first time that the Falkland Islands appeared at all in the operating profiles of the buyer companies but this year to our great surprise we had a specific mention in the details of twenty-one companies from USA, Mexico, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Denmark, Australia and New Zealand, and that's not including those companies which simply put "region wide" like Cosmic Travel of Belgium who are putting a Falklands programme in their brochure for the first time", said John Fowler from the Falkland Islands Tourism delegation present at the conference in Quito than convened thousands of tourism operators.
Travel Mart Latin America brings together representatives of tourism destinations throughout Latin America with specialist tour operators from all over the world. For the former, known as ?suppliers', the three day event, which is held at a different location every year, consists essentially of one day for arriving, registering and setting up an office within a convention centre and then an intensive two day programme of up to forty pre-arranged meetings with tour operators or ?buyers'.
For their part, the buyers have to demonstrate extraordinary tenacity and physical stamina as they move from appointment to appointment every twenty-five minutes or so for two whole days, carrying, or trolling, if they have done it before, increasingly heavy loads of tourist literature.
On this occasion the Falklands were represented by Falkland Islands Tourism, John Fowler and Debs Ford, Jenny Forrest from International Tours and Travel, Islands and Jenny Luxton from Stanley Services Travel Division.
Jenny Luxton summed up the opinion of the Islands' participants, Travel Mart Latin America "represents the most important marketing opportunity of the year for tourism in the Falklands".
The event is organized by WH Coleman Inc of Jacksonville, Florida, who provides all suppliers with a bound meeting schedule and a directory of all the participating buyer companies with a wealth of information about each.
Travel Mart Latin America veterans John Fowler and Jennie Forrest said that they were really surprised at the number of buying companies now listing the Falkland Islands as among the countries to which they sent clients.
"For a tiny country like the Falklands competing in a global market, such increased listing presence has to be regarded as impressive", underlined Mr. Fowler.
Source: "Penguin News".
Top Comments
Disclaimer & comment rulesCommenting for this story is now closed.
If you have a Facebook account, become a fan and comment on our Facebook Page!