The 32nd Korea International Tourism Exhibition (KOTFA 2017) is slated to be held from June 1-4 at Coex in Seoul. The tourism event is designed to boost in- and out-bound tourism centered on B2C, supplemented by B2B.
The expo offers tourism agencies, companies and academics a venue to exchange information on the industry. Suppliers and general consumers also benefit from being able to expand tourist exchanges and tourism networks.
Above all, it’s a market place for the sale and the purchase of tourism products and services. The Organizing Committee of KOTFA 2017, led by Chairman Shin Joong-mok, has been putting resources into the annual event to help bring it to the same level as renowned international tourism events such as ITB by 2030.
They would like to help Korea cope with changes in the environment of the tourism industry and consumers needs by improving designs and services. They also want to expand the public participation to strengthen the exhibition’s functions. They aim to challenge the concept that exhibitions are inseparable from booths, stressing they can be partners with participating firms to further enhance the competitive strength of Korean tourism exhibitions.
The A-Hall, located on the ground floor of Coex, will show off the best tourism information in some 70 countries thru the Tourism Public Relations Outlets of those countries. The B Hall will have colorful facilities for games and experiences as centerpieces.
The specially planned sections at the B Hall will include an exhibition booth for 10 ASEAN countries, where they will hold a food festival; the World Spa Hall introducing famous spas in the U.S., Japan, Macao, Mexico, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Turkey, Taiwan and others; the VR Hall jointly operated by associations in Macao, Mexico, Kore, Guam, among others; and the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics Hall run by the Organizing Committee of the 2018 global event to show off some of the major events. The B Hall will also explore culture, the arts, leisure sports, education, medicine, farming, environmental welfare and others related to tourism to participate to spur inter-sector cooperation to expand the tourism industry’s related areas in- and outside the industry.
The Organizing Committee will have B2B programs to include expanded contents to explain domestic travel programs through the signing of MOUs with new international tourism organizations and international tourism exhibitions to boost cooperation as well as its competitive strength.
The event will show its concern for international issues such as climate change by operating the Eco environment friendly booth. The booth will give out “Eco bags” to customers who bought admission tickets to the exhibition. The environmental campaign aims at reducing the one-time of use paper cups, recommending more environmentally friendly goods to turn the exhibition into a display designed to “reduce the use of CO2 to zero.”
The Organizing Committee will supplement the four-day event by introducing the use of marketing tools at the exhibition by signing MOUs with Naver, which has some 3 million memberships, and JTBC Non-Summit Foreign Management Group to promote talkshow on travel, and video marketing in joint cooperation with the tourism government agencies, and domestic tourism agencies to attract attention from the tourism industry, as a new paradigm for tourism marketing through exhibitions.
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