Highly successful participation by Conventions Malta in Barcelona event

Conventions Malta, the MICE division within the Malta Tourism Authority, recently participated at the 30th edition of the IBTM World Fair in Barcelona, together with 18 Maltese trade partners who co-exhibited on the Malta stand. The co-exhibitors included conference hotels, conference centres, Quality Assured destination-management companies, Air Malta and other service providers.

IBTM, which stands for Incentive, Business, Travel and Meetings, is a tradeshow that caters to the Meetings, Incentives, Conferences and Events industry. This year, IBTM World announced it scheduled the highest number of matched appointments between trade partners and prospective clients in the last four years, with over 51,000 matched appointments that took place over two days.

Seventy-six meetings were held with Conventions Malta on the Malta stand. These included meetings with 52 agencies, 16 associations and eight other companies, including corporate ones. In addition to scheduled meetings, there were a number of walk-ins on the Malta stand. A total of 271 hosted buyers visited the stand throughout the three days.

This trade show, organised by Reed Travel Exhibitions, is considered to be one of the flagships in terms of mustattend events for MICE. Reed also has a portfolio of another six regional events across the Middle East, Americas, Asia and Australia. The IBTM World took place between 28 and 30 November in Spain.

Peter Cauchi, head of Conventions Malta, explained that together with the team from head office, representatives from the destination’s main source markets (France, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom) contributed towards the meetings held daily on the stand. Presentations were held daily to promote the destination and highlight the infrastructure and services found on the Island.

Visitors to the stand could sample Maltese snack food and drinks such as Kinnie, Cisk Lager, Emmanuel Delicata Winemaker and Meridiana Wine Estate wines, together with Twistees featuring the limited V18 editions.

The MTA’s CEO, Paul Bugeja, remarked on the fact that this is the second year that Conventions Malta have participated with their new branding. He said that exposure to the Conventions Malta brand is of utmost importance, considering the fact that there was an increase of 6.6% in the number of tourists that came to Malta for business purposes in the last year, when compared to the previous year. Between 2015 and 2016, there was an increase of 7,928 tourists for business purposes visiting Malta, reaching a total of 127,967.

Bugeja concluded that the MTA and its MICE division, Conventions Malta, truly believe that the Maltese islands are able to offer a distinct experience for small and larger businesses, in some truly unique setting.