FITUR International Tourism Fair 2021 moved to May 

ONE of the planet's largest tourism industry trade fairs has already set its dates for 2021, but not in the usual month – instead of being held around the third week in January, FITUR will take place in May.

The Feria Internacional de Turismo, which fills Madrid's huge IFEMA exhibition centre for five days, is – along with London's World Travel Market (WTM) – the one tourism trade fair practically no town in Spain wants to miss, even if it comes at a high cost to the local budget.

This is because Madrid's International Tourism Fair is among the world's biggest, is a place where literally hundreds of deals are struck between local councils and tour operators – among other key industry businesses – and where local, national and regional authorities in countries on every inhabited continent can gain a clear picture of a municipality's or province's main attractions for visitors.

FITUR attendance is an investment rather than an expense, and there are very few other chances for travel agencies based in, for example, Gabon, South Korea, Niger and Papua New Guinea to see footage of ski resorts in Aragón, mineral mudbath beaches in Formentera, or local cuisine or country breaks in Alicante or Málaga, under the same roof.

As a result, the FITUR organising committee and IFEMA's management consider the fair to be 'absolutely essential' for the recovery of Spain's and the rest of the world's ailing tourism industries, nearly all of which ground to a halt this year because of the pandemic.

But in January, when it always takes place, the Covid-19 crisis will still be unresolved, as only a few countries will have started vaccinating their populations and, in these, only the most vulnerable and highly-exposed residents.

By the spring, it is hoped that the vaccination efforts will have started to bear fruit and that most of the world, with the exception of young, otherwise-healthy adults, will be immunised.

To this end, the organisers plan to stage the FITUR between May 19 and 23, 2021.

Every year, FITUR sees over 11,000 companies from around 165 countries and representatives from local and national governments in almost every nation on earth gather together in one venue.

The fair typically brings in about €330 million in one hit for Madrid and for Spain as a whole.

In the photograph, the country's advertising slogan for FITUR 2013 – 'I need Spain' – voices an opinion shared by tens of millions of would-be travellers every year, and one which has been even more deeply felt outside the nation's borders when foreign holidays became off-limits due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

This January, before the word 'Coronavirus' had even entered the ordinary civilian's vocabulary, FITUR representatives reported that holidaymaker numbers in Spain had topped 83 million per annum – nearly double the nation's year-round population of 47.1 million – and that, collectively, visitors to the country spent a total of €92 billion annually.