Alberto Rubio
With Ecuador as the guest country – and accompanied by its president, Daniel Noboa – King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia inaugurated yesterday in Madrid the 44th edition of the International Tourism Fair (Fitur), which this year has broken its own record of participants, with 9,000 companies (500 more than last year) and 152 countries (20 more).
The Ecuadorian president, whose attendance was in doubt until the last minute due to the crisis of violence caused by organised crime in the South American country, underlined his satisfaction at the support that the visit of the King and Queen to his stand represents in this context, where he received them accompanied by his Minister of Tourism, Niels Olsen.
Speaking to journalists afterwards, Noboa said that “we want to make a better country, a safer country, with its arms open to investors and tourists”.
To this end, Ecuador will display a wide range of nature, culture and gastronomy at Fitur, with which, among other markets, it hopes to increase the arrival of Spanish tourists by 10%, to whom its authorities want to assure that the country’s main tourist routes are completely free of violence.
Before visiting the Ecuadorian pavilion, the King and Queen toured several pavilions at the fair accompanied by the Spanish Minister of Tourism, Jordi Hereu, and the Secretary General of UN Tourism, Zurab Pololikashvili, as well as the presidents of Congress and the Senate and a dozen regional presidents.
The opening of Fitur comes just a few days before the Spanish National Statistics Institute (INE) publishes the official data on foreign tourist arrivals in 2023 on 2 February. According to estimates by the Ministry of Industry and Tourism, Spain will beat its record number of visits with more than 84 million visitors, 1% more than in 2019.
Also in global terms, according to the latest data from UN Tourism (until now UNWTO), 2023 was a good year for the sector, as it closed with an estimated recovery of 90% of pre-pandemic levels, with revenues of around 1.4 billion dollars, 93% of those obtained in 2019.
In this edition of Fitur, which expects to welcome 250,000 people until Sunday, technology-oriented tourism companies will play a leading role – which this year will grow by 23% in number, to almost a hundred – and those that emphasise accessibility, inclusion and sustainability.
Following the inauguration of Fitur by Don Felipe and Doña Letizia, UN Tourism Secretary-General Zurab Pololikashvili said that the new name – as The Diplomat reported yesterday– reflects the organisation’s aim to “boost a sustainable force that is now central to many economies”.
