Procolombia | Promoción de Exportaciones- Inversión- Turismo- Marca País
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At least ten charter flights will be arriving in the Coffee Triangle from Guatemala, a country that is celebrating these days because for the first they will have a national soccer team participating in a World Cup: the Under-20 World Cup in Colombia.
This is one of the results of the region’s international promotion as a tourist destination during the FIFA Under-20 World Cup, to be played between July 29th and August 20th.
Some of these charter flights were offered by a radio station in Guatemala City, which invited its listeners to Colombia during the eight-country tour by PROCOLOMBIA with 14 tourist operators and local promotion entities, among which are Confamiliares and the Manizales Culture and Tourism Institute.
Costa Ricans are also interested in coming to Colombia to enjoy the soccer celebration. LAFISE Bank, with the aid of PROCOLOMBIA, is offering its cardholders special packages with destination Manizales, to attend the ‘Tico’ national team’s games and enjoy city tours around the capital city of Caldas, Manizales, and the city of Pereira, as well as a visit to the Snow-Peak Park (Parque de los Nevados), and the Santa Rosa thermal pools.
The balance of both national and international activities by PROCOLOMBIA was presented this past Tuesday by its Vice Presidency of Tourism, Zully Salazar, together with the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Tourism Promotion Fund Director, Adriana Saavedra, the Mayor of Pereira, Israel Londoño and John Velasquez, Under-20 World Cup Organization Committee Director in Pereira.
Manizales, Pereira and Armenia, as World Cup host cities and capital cities from the region, will all host the international delegations from Croatia, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Australia, Guatemala, Spain, Ecuador and Costa Rica.
As part of the international promotion strategy, professional soccer players Radamel Falcao Garcia and Oscar Cordoba participated in a series of commercials inviting viewers to visit the eight World Cup host cities. (Please watch the Coffee Triangle video starring Cordoba: https://tiny.cc/62gle).
The commercials will be on the air from mid-June on Fox Sports, History Channel and National Geographic in the entire continent.
"This is a great opportunity to show the world that we can organize things well and give them high value. Having said that, now is the time for every one of us has to wear our T-shirt, export our warmth and kindness towards our visitors and make them run the risk of wanting to stay”, said the Colombian goalkeeper, also interviewed by newspapers and television shows in Ecuador and Brazil, where he held football-tennis activities with the fans as part of the promotion.
The promotional tour conducted by PROCOLOMBIA included entrepreneurs and local entities from Cartagena, Barranquilla, Bogota and Medellín, and covered Mexico, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Panama, Ecuador, Venezuela, Brazil and Argentina.
Presentations of the country and each host city of the World Cup were given to around 130 wholesalers, 450 travel agencies from those countries, as well as the local communications media.
“Tourism moves significant amounts of money around the world, and the fact that Colombia is hosting a sports championship of this category is very interesting to the country and for the people coming to see the spectacle”, said Victor Diaz from Destinos y Negocios, a Venezuelan wholesaler.
Another promotion strategy carried out by PROCOLOMBIA was to bring different opinion leaders to show them each of the host cities of the event.
So far, seven different international media have arrived: La Razón (Spain), TV Azteca (Mexico), Guatevisión (Guatemala), Fox Sports (Argentina), Canal 10 (Uruguay), Ecuavisa (Ecuador) and Sport (France). After the visit, at least 20 press reports have been created for television, digital and printed media. Journalism reports made reference to Medellin, Bogotá, Cartagena, Cali, Barranquilla and the Coffee Triangle. The reports not only highlighted the Under-20 World Cup, but the country was also mentioned as a tourism destination. Next week, a journalistic team from Agencia EFE, Spain, will come to the Coffee Triangle to prepare a Tourism special.
To bring the Latin American audience to context on the place where this Under-20 World Cup is going to be held, Fox Sports International and PROCOLOMBIA will be filming a series of shows in the host cities for tourists from around the continent to have a look at the main destinations. Each show will highlight the most significant aspects of each city, always starting at the local stadium and testimonials from the local authorities. The series will be on the air starting July 26th.
As a result of PROCOLOMBIA’s promotion activities, a study conducted by GNI Latinoamerica, a leading company in communications media and public source strategic analysis, highlighted that between January and June 14th, 2011, “the tone of the articles about the upcoming Under-20 World Cup in Colombia has gone from neutral to positive, thanks to PROCOLOMBIA’s leadership in the promotion of said event around the world.”
According to the analysis, the percentage of positive articles related to the Colombian World Cup was 59 percent, while neutral articles represented 41 percent.
The GNI report has indicated that the information on the Colombian Under-20 World Cup has been published by the media in Argentina, Cuba, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru, Spain, Panama, United States, Venezuela, Brazil, France and China, among others.
