Colombia. Maintaining the meetings already confirmed and implementing biosecurity protocols and messages of trust, Colombia continues to work and bet in favor of the meetings tourism industry.
And that focus has been rewarded in a great international interest in the country's offer at IBTM World Virtual, the mice tourism fair that took place in Barcelona, this edition virtually, from December 8 to 10.
The Colombian participation resulted in 85 business meetings of entrepreneurs from countries such as Spain, Turkey, the United Kingdom, Greece, Germany, France, Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, Portugal, Russia, Ukraine and the United States.
The segment of meetings tourism in Colombia begins to present advances within the framework of the strategy of reactivation of the sector. The most recent of these was announced by the International Congress and Convention Association confirming Cartagena as the venue of its World Summit for 2021.
"We have taken advantage of this juncture to prepare and be ready to welcome again travelers from all over the world and world-class events. Hosting the ICCA Congress World 2021 means that we are on the right track and that, under strict biosecurity parameters, we are making steady progress in the reactivation of the meetings tourism segment, which positively impacts our economy," said Flavia Santoro, president of ProColombia, the entity of the Government of Colombia that promotes investment, exports, tourism and country brand in the world.
Among the actions that ProColombia has carried out during this juncture is the launch of the campaign "Change the date, not the destination", a joint initiative with the National Network of Bureaus. The strategy seeks to keep in touch with organizers of large-scale world events that keep Colombia as a venue for meetings, including the World Congress of Neurosurgery, Devcon, FIEXPO, as well as the ICCA World Congress.
On the other hand, in mid-September the Ministry of Health of Colombia issued a biosecurity protocol for business fair activities, which apply to events of no more than 50 people. This, added to the facilities provided by the use of technological tools, has ratified the trend of organizing events in a blended manner.
Such is the case of the organization of the recent Colombia Investment Summit, the most important foreign direct investment summit in the country, which was held under this modality and which brought together 50 attendees in person and 3,000 people virtually.
In addition, several venues have acquired the seal "Certified Check in, COVID-19 biosafe" from the National Government of Colombia, a certification whose main objectives are to generate trust, minimize the risks of contagion of the virus and encourage tourism in the country. These include Agora; Corferias; Golden Gate; Estelar Santa Mar Hotel; Convention Center in Santa Marta; and the Hotel and Convention Center Las Americas in Cartagena and; the Cartagena de Indias Convention Center, among others.
For its part, ProColombia has developed the Incentives Empowerment program, whose objective is the training and adaptation of companies focused on this segment to offer experiences that allow them to enhance incentive trips in the country.
Another initiative of the entity is the development of the virtual platform Meeting Planner (colombia.travel/meeting-planner/es) to exhibit online all the infrastructure offer that the country has for the meetings industry.
Among the advances that the country has registered was the consolidation of the National Network of Bureaus. "This is a table in which we are working on an action plan for this segment in six axes: diagnosis, measurement indicators, financing, communications, biosecurity and reactivation," said the President of ProColombia.
This synergy allowed to carry out the MICE Business Plan, whose purpose is to work in specialized missions for this segment, a business roundtable and an incubator that seeks to establish an academic network of high-impact ventures around the meetings industry.
