Colombia Grows in Corporate Travelers and Events in 2014

Museums, public spaces, theme parks, haciendas, and convention centers in the country became more attractive to foreign entrepreneurs looking for places to hold their corporate events, congresses, and incentive trips. This actually increased the number of tourists by 13.6% in the last three years as a result of events.

The western department of Valle del Cauca was one of the destinations that exhibited the highest growth. Between 2012 and 2014, the department grew by 54.5%, or 4,394 more travelers. Its products include nine non-traditional venues, 20 hotels with halls, and a convention center, attracting visitors mostly from Ecuador, Peru, the United States, and Mexico, according to the data from the Immigration Department of Colombia.

Likewise, traditional haciendas, theme parks, and plantations across the Coffee Cultural Landscape increased the number of events visitors by 49.4% in the last three years. An example of the department's potential as an international meetings destination was the International Conference on Coffee Science, organized by the Association for Science and Information on Coffee (ASIC), an event brought by ProColombia which gathered 600 participants from 42 countries in the city of Armenia.

"We identified over 26 potential markets in which we already are developing promotional activities to bring meetings, congresses, and conventions. Since August 2010, we have promoted 457 events to choose us as their venue, which creates more revenues for hotels, transportation providers, logistics service providers, convention centers, and other players in the value chain," stated Maria Claudia Lacouture, president of ProColombia.

According to the International Congress and Conventions Association (ICCA), a corporate traveler spends $676 USD daily, which is five times what a leisure tourist spends, as found by the International Traveler Survey (Encuesta de Viajeros Internacionales, EVI) from the National Administrative Department of Statistics (Departamento Administrativo Nacional de Estadística, DANE). This works specifically towards the goal set forth by the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Tourism of bringing $6 billion USD worth of activities related to the tourism industry.

Antioquia, with its capital city of Medellin, is another department with the highest number of visitors in this sector. Mexico, Ecuador, the United States, and Brazil were some of the markets that contributed towards this destination's growth of 45% compared to 2012, with the arrival of 6,631 additional travelers.

As proof of its potential, nearly 3,000 foreign visitors will participate in the General Assembly of the World Tourism Organization in Medellin between September 12th-17th, which means that Colombia will be the only country in the continent to host this major biannual gathering twice.
  
National Providers Prepare to Host 58 Events

Through ProColombia's efforts, between 2015 and 2016, cities like Cali, Bogota, Cartagena, and Medellin will hold nearly 58 international events from countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom, and Germany. For this reason, professional congress organizers (PCO), tour operators, conventions centers and bureaus were trained on April 28th-29th with the Professional Convention Management Association (PCMA).

There were 59 total companies that, through this training, took the first step towards having an international certification by the Convention Industry Council. "Colombia has very robust products and services in the meetings tourism sector; however, certification will allow international event organizers to learn beforehand about the entrepreneurs in this country", said Michelle Crowley, global development director in the PCMA.