In this context, Travel2latam was able to talk to Jaqueline Gil, International Marketing, Business & Sustainability Director of Embratur.
What is your vision about participating in an event as complete as this?
In Brazil we have had the mice sector as a priority since last year. In other words, events like Fiexpo, which today brings together more than 3,000 buyers from Latin America, are very important. We are working very hard to return Brazil to a globally competitive business and events destination. We start with the Latin American region, where we are now. And in May we obtained the answer that we regained leadership as the number one country in Latin America in the ICCA ranking of international events. This gives us the country, the set of destinations with which we work internationally, more desire to move forward. It gives us the certainty that we are on the right path. This excites us, we know that the strongest trips to Brazil are in Latin America. Here is our main leisure and business market, we know that Brazil occupies a positive economic position, we are on our way to reaching the eighth largest economy in the world, according to official information from the Brazilian government last week. And when there is a strong economy, we know that more business, more tourism and events are generated. The development of tourism brings the need to offer increasingly better experiences to these travelers.
How have you organized participation in this event? Who is accompanying them?
What matters to us in this event is offering space and opportunities to do business. Here we are with companies and destinations that represent the entire country. The companies are national, they work with the entire country, but there are also companies with hotels and groups that represent many companies such as the Convention Bureau of Sao Paulo, the Convention Bureau of Rio, and the destinations that are here with us are those who are further ahead and want strengthen yourself in business and events.
Before we were talking about the disposition of the country, state by state, which has incredible convention centers, due to a connectivity that is unique in the region. I would like a reflection on that from you.
I think there are two points that we have to bring to this reflection. One is competitiveness, which involves access, and the number of flights and seats. Another issue is sustainability. We are making a commitment to the business and events industry with sustainability as a focus. We talked about this yesterday at the Political Forum, and today at the lunch we offered to hundreds of buyers.
Conventions, airlines and airports, we are all involved in the challenge of making our industry more sustainable. This is the core point of what we are promoting.
Today we are at Fiexpo, but the year of promotion for you continues. What are the next steps?
We never stop. There is a strategy that is still underway, on the way to strengthening ourselves as a business and events destination. I think the most important thing is that two months ago, in April of this year, at WTV Sao Paulo, we launched the program to support the recruitment and promotion of international events that happen in Brazil. This is a tool so that all companies and destination associations have guaranteed support with us for the work they carry out to attract events. Furthermore, work is all involved so that sustainability is central to all those who work with this sector in Brazil. We want to grow and this is permanent. And obtain financing, investments for nature conservation and strengthening communities through tourism.