The international tourism exhibition Intourmarket will occur from the 12th and until the 15th of March in ‘Crocus Expo’ center in Moscow.  Visitors can expect many interesting and new things at the exhibition this year.

Many new hotels and travel companies have recently opened in the Altai region and all have excellent and qualified service.  The exhibition stand for the Altai region is much larger this year, and will include presentation of both hotels and tour operators.

The exhibition will also hold the Meeting of Coordinating Council for Interregional Tourism Association «Siberian Agreement", which will solidify plans for tourism development in the Siberian region.

As usual, Krasnodar Territory, the strategic partner of the exhibition will have more than 500 square meters of exhibition space. Resorts on the Black Sea are building new facilitates and updating their infrastructure, details of which will be discussed at the exhibition. Sochi, the host of the future Olympic Winter Games, will have its own exhibition stand.

Other large exhibits will be the stands of Rostov Region, Karelia Republic, Irkutsk Oblast, and the Altai Republic. Kavminvodyi will increase its presence at the exhibition. Government and business official will see real results from participation in the exhibition: the booking of resorts has noticeably increased.

All regions of the Caucasus will be represented at the exhibition, including Dagestan, which contains many wonderful vacation spots, unknown to most Russian people.

This year the organizers of Intourmarket had the pleasant experience of many requests from various regions. Local tour agencies asked to “influence” the tourism government agencies for better representation at the exhibition. The regional travel agencies are interested in participating in Intourmarket because they understand that this particular event implies attendance of their Russian colleagues, who will send tourists their way.

Foreign participation will also increase at this year’s Intourmarket. New countries are taking part of Intourmarket, including Canada and U.S., who will showcase their excursion and beach vacation programs at a presentation. Other guests of the exhibition that may be interesting to our visitors include Japan, Oman and Bhutan.

The partner country of this year’s exhibition is Turkey. Greece is the official partner of the “Professional Buyer” program.

The Moscow City Government’s Tourism Comittee will appear at the Intourmarket exhibition for the first time.

The Intourmarket organizers were strict in the selection of the “Professional Buyer” program participants and asked all candidates who registered through the website to provide a letter of recommendation from one of the large tour operators. The “Professional Buyer” program intends to provide support for regional tourism for the most professional agencies.

In addition to the traditional business program, the organizers have prepared a gift for the attending agencies- a sightseeing tour in Moscow. This is the second year foreign agencies have participated in the program; this year 17 representatives of Eastern and Western European agencies will be in attendance, and also representatives of the CIS countries. Presentations in both Russian and English agencies will be available, as well as a large cultural program.  

The business program includes: a traditional seminar of the World Tour Organization. This year the main topic of the seminar will be the growth of potential tourist location. The seminar will also include members if ATOR. It is planned that the association will present a new and interesting promotional project for regions.

A novelty at the exhibition will be the seminar for tourism on a budget, which will be organized with the Ministry of Tourism and ANTOR.

Registration on the Intourmarket website now allows you to print a badge and attend the exhibition without registration procedures at the door. In previous years, a badge was only given in exchange for an invite. It will still be necessary to visit the registration desk in order to get an information package of materials, but you will now be able to do this at any time. A free internet café, where you can use a computer, check your email, and print materials will be working again like last year.

Another service that was very popular with visitors – the ability to send promotional materials to any part of Russia, will continue to function and will be improved with the additional ability to receive promotional materials at their offices in a couple of days. Low rates for this service will be available for everyone. Last year more than 3,000 people used these services.

The parking for luggage will be another service available for exhibition guests. Last year this service was gladly used by the professional visitors of the exhibition.

The number of independent travelers is growing, along with the number of independent visitors who attend the exhibition in search of promotional materials. This year the parking for luggage service will be available to independent visitors at the conference as well.

Our last newest project is The Tea Patio. The Tea Patio will take place on a special area in the end of the 7th hall.  A long time friend and partner of Intourmarket, the Ivan Chai Company, will be serving exhibition visitors tea free of charge.

The following article contains material from the interview, published on the website: www.atorus.ru