EMITT 2020 welcomed 44,321 visitors and close to 1000 exhibitors from 103 countries!

The goals of increasing income per tourist and strengthening local tourism assets in 2020 and beyond were the highlights of this year’s EMITT, which was opened with the participation of the Minister of Culture and Tourism of the Republic of Turkey, Mehmet Nuri Ersoy. 24^th EMITT was held with the corporate sponsorship of T.R. Ministry of Culture and Tourism, T.R. Governorship of Istanbul, Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality, and Turkish Airlines, along with the support of Small and Medium Industry Development Organization (KOSGEB), and business partnerships of Turkish Hoteliers Federation (TÜROFED), and Turkish Tourism Investors Association (TTYD) between January 30 – February 2 at TÜYAP Fair, Convention and Congress Center. Along with 44,000+ visitors and around 1,000 exhibitors from 103 countries, 200 hosted tour operators from 20 countries were at the exhibition, and as a result 4,476 B2B meetings were held.


In 10 industry-related sessions held as part of the exhibition’s event programme, 45 expert speakers delivered speeches and enlightened tourism professionals. As it was the case in the previous years, Presidents’ Forum attracted great attention. The session titled “Presidents’ Forum: Opinion Leaders Announce Their Predictions for Tourism in 2020”, which brought together opinion leaders within the industry and moderated by Bahattin Yücel, the Minister of Tourism of the 54^th government of Republic of Turkey, was held with the participation of the Vice President of TÜRSAB Ali Bilir, President of TTYD Oya Narin, and Chairman of TÜROFED Sururi Çorabatır. In the sessions, in which the importance of EMITT in the industry was emphasized, the steps that need to be taken in order to increase revenue per tourist were thoroughly discussed.
 
As well as the sessions where the direction of the industry in Turkey and in the world were discussed in detail, new approaches to tourism marketing were also presented to industry professionals.


Through 5 VR experiences, exhibitors and visitors met the future technologies in tourism marketing. VR experiences such as Virtual Mona Lisa Exhibition, Göbeklitepe, and Everest drew a great deal of interest among the visitors throughout the exhibition. In the VR Experience Area, hundreds of visitors had the opportunity to visit and observe the destinations they were unable to visit before. With over 50 exhibitor companies and 12 event partners, EMITT 2020 offered a dynamic and exciting exhibition experience once again.