The Region of Murcia will go to Fitur to attract and retain the visitor with the highest purchasing power

Loyalty to visitors with greater purchasing power and breaking with seasonality will be the two objectives of the institutional presence of the Region of Murcia at the Madrid International Tourism Fair (Fitur), which will take place between January 18 and 22. This was announced by the Minister of the Presidency, Tourism, Culture and Sports, Marcos Ortuño, at the presentation at the Roman Theater in Cartagena, this Friday, of the thousand-meter space that the Costa Cálida will occupy at the Madrid fairgrounds, Ifema, the next week.

«The Region can and should attract and retain a tourist with a greater spending capacity and longer stays to all our territories and throughout the year, as stated in the Strategic Tourism Plan 2022-2032, and which is the main objective of our presence in Fitur”, said the counselor. To which, to questions from LA VERDAD, he added: «16% of all tourists who visit us are cultural, which is the one that leaves the most money, along with those who come to play golf and enjoy our gastronomy. We want to establish connections between these three types of tourism, because whoever comes to enjoy this Roman Theater can make the most of it by going to the beach or playing golf. We have a lot of room for improvement.”

The Region comes to Fitur with its own space with two different parts: one for the use of businessmen in the sector, with the aim that they can hold a hundred already scheduled meetings with potential clients; the other, to house the forty planned presentations and promotional activities. There, visitors will be received every day with the sweet taste of Asian coffee from Cartagena and the most famous wafer cookies in the Region, the Yecla booklets.

However, there will also be promotion of the Costa Cálida and its main cities in public spaces in the capital of Spain, such as the Campo de las Naciones Metro stop, for access to the fairgrounds. Likewise, the Plaza de Colón will house an exhibition dedicated to the Holy Week processions in the Region, which will coincide with the one that LA VERDAD and the Cartagena City Council will dedicate to the Cartagena Greater Week in the nearby Paseo de Recoletos during the last two weeks of January and the first days of February.

«Acceleration of tourist activity»

Ortuño stressed that the context for promoting the Region, in which the largest tourism fair in the world is considered, is the most appropriate, since it is “marked by the acceleration of tourism activity and high expectations.” The Region, he added, recovered the pre-pandemic figures in 2022, with 1.5 million visitors and 600,000 travelers and two million overnight stays during the summer campaign. Encouraged by these numbers, the Community will present the campaign ‘In the Region of Murcia #somosunosmotivados’, which includes 23 inalienable and unique reasons to visit it throughout 2023 and will also announce who will be its second ambassador, after the tennis player’s designation as such Carlos Alcaraz last year.

On Thursday, Region Day in Fitur, the plan to promote cultural tourism will also be presented, the so-called blue tourism, whose objective is to continue attracting visitors to coastal destinations beyond the summer season; as well as the actions planned for the Jubilee Year 2024 in Caravaca de la Cruz. The Community, the Town Hall, the brotherhood and the Camino de la Cruz Foundation are ambitious in the face of this religious and cultural event. They intend to reach a million pilgrims, twice as many as in 2017, according to Ortuño.

Other promotional actions in the Costa Cálida space at the Madrid fairgrounds will be the presentation of the Murcia Region Film Commission as a destination for film sets, the Jumilla, Yecla and Bullas wine routes, the sustainable tourism action ‘Nature Sensory’ and gastronomic tourism. Chef Sergio de la Orden, from the El Mosqui restaurant in Cabo de Palos, nominated for revelation chef 2023 at Madrid Fusión, will be in charge of tasting the products and regional cuisine.

Ortuño was accompanied in the presentation by the mayoress of Cartagena, Noelia Arroyo. The event was also attended by the councilor of Puerto Lumbreras, María Ángeles Túnez; the director of the Institute of Tourism of the Region (Itrem), Juan Francisco Martínez; the deputy mayor of Cartagena Manuel Padín; the president of the Port of Cartagena, Yolanda Muñoz, and about twenty representatives of town halls, companies, employers’ associations, and business associations.