One of the biggest international travel trade fairs, FITUR, took place from January 30 to February 3, 2013 in Madrid. It continues to be a global meeting point for travel professionals and it being the 33rd edition speaks about the popularity of the event.
Team eRevMax was happy to be back at FITUR, as it really is one of the key shows to meet Spanish and international hoteliers. The company’s stand saw RateTiger Spanish clients turning up in droves to speak to the Sales and Account Managers.
“We heard a lot of positive news and some excellent feedback. In addition, we had many new visitors keen to find out about RTSuite 3.0 and how it differentiates in the marketplace; well really quite simply — a) integrated product for both channel management and pricing; b) automated inventory distribution; c) full service account management; d) greater product flexibility,” said Ryan Haynes, VP Marketing.
He further added, “FITUR did have less exhibitors this year and at times there was a lull, there didn’t seem to be much discussion on the state of the Spanish economy, but this is now old news. Instead everyone focused on business. I’d be interested to see what FITUR can do to bring the magic back to the tradeshow.”
Automated distribution and allocation is becoming a hit with hotels – they are open to new product and ideas – hoping to overcome the current crisis. “We witnessed an increase in the enquiries – people were keen to know how it would help them in their distribution. Further I also noticed rising interest among Portuguese hoteliers this year,” says Flavio Bastos Amiel, PR Representative.
Nuria Bermejo, Service Manager thought that there were fewer stands and the attendance was low. “However I was glad to see that a lot of people came to our stand specifically to see us knowing the range RateTiger offers,” quipped Nuria.
From a sales perspective, Cristina Hernandez, Sales Manager for Spain noticed that the event was lacking in delivering for exhibitors – “The number of exhibitors are reducing year on year, however the good part was that hotels were excited to see our offerings. I was amazed to see that many small independent hotels knew exactly what they wanted and were glad to choose us.”