The Diplomat
The administrations and institutions involved in the organization of the Madrid International Tourism Trade Fair (FITUR) officially announced yesterday that the 2021 edition will be held from May 19 to 23 and will have all the necessary resources to make the event “a safe space from the health point of view”.
The Minister of Industry, Tourism and Trade, Reyes Maroto, met yesterday with representatives of IFEMA, FITUR, the Community of Madrid, the Madrid City Council and the UNWTO at the Ministry’s headquarters to “confirm their commitment to holding this major international tourism fair”, which seeks to “relaunch tourism globally and consolidate Spain as a prescriber of safe tourism,” according to the Department. The fair will take place “from May 19 to 23” and will be “the first major experience of safe international mobility in Spain”, it added.
“The holding of FITUR is good news because it allows us to show the world that Spain is synonymous with a quality and safe destination”, said Reyes Maroto after the meeting, which was also attended by the president of IFEMA’s Executive Committee, José Vicente de los Mozos; the president of Iberia and of the FITUR Organizing Committee, Javier Sánchez Prieto; the Regional Minister of Culture and Tourism of the Community of Madrid, Marta Rivera de la Cruz; and the Madrid City Council’s Tourism Delegate, Almudena Maíllo.
“FITUR is going to be a global showcase to discuss initiatives such as health passports, tourist corridors, diagnostic tests, etc., but it also represents a milestone for the tourism sector, which faces 2021 with optimism due to the arrival of vaccines that offer a horizon for the reactivation of the sector”, added the minister.
The participants in the meeting pledged to provide “the necessary resources to make the event a safe space from the health point of view”. In this regard, IFEMA representatives explained that, in addition to the mandatory PCR tests at source and rapid tests in situ, a protocol has been developed with all the necessary measures to organize the flow of attendees and their mobility, establish capacity controls, guarantee safety distances, eliminate direct contacts through digital registration and incorporate the latest technologies for health safety and counting of attendees. Likewise, all IFEMA pavilions will be equipped with a ventilation system that will guarantee 100% outside air and will have the capacity to renew all the air in the pavilion in just over 20 minutes.
In addition, Maroto confirmed yesterday in an interview with Telemadrid (in which he had also announced the celebration of FITUR) that the Mobile World Congress (MWC) will return to Barcelona in 2021, as already announced by the organizers of the world’s largest cell phone fair. The previous MWC was cancelled in mid-February 2020 in the context of the COVID-19 health emergency (in fact, it was cancelled even before the pandemic was declared). Last December, the Council of Ministers approved a Royal Decree granting a subsidy of five million euros to the Mobile World Capital Barcelona Foundation to promote the celebration of the next editions of the Mobile World Congress and guarantee its permanence in Barcelona until at least 2024.
