In Barranquilla, since 2017, we have managed to attract, under the business tourism strategy, more than 80 events that attracted around 75,000 visitors and generated more than 60 million dollars in consumption of products and services.
This success is the result of a plan to promote and attract events that, year after year, bears more fruit,” said Erika Grau, ProBarranquilla Business Tourism Manager, within the framework of ExpoProBarranquilla 2024, during the panel titled “Barranquilla and the Atlantic: A tourist awakening beyond business.” In addition, he highlighted that tourism encompasses much more than just being a vacation destination, since currently being seen as an enhancer of economic and business development, it has positioned Barranquilla and the Atlantic as one of the main regions for carrying out big events.
Present as special guests on the panel were: Samy Bessudo, president of Aviatur, Paola Angarita, general manager I DO and Eugenia Powell, director of Business Development Promtur Panama. In Barranquilla the tourism sector has made important leaps, because it has had excellent coordination between the public and private sectors, an unusual relationship when compared to tourism development in other parts of the world.
In Panama, for example, there has also been active participation from different sectors that have led Panama City to become a benchmark in this matter, for this reason, Eugenia Powell, director of Business Development at Promtur Panama, revealed his enthusiasm in considering Barranquilla as a city with great potential to become a center for mass events in leisure, academia and business. Powell reported that in Panama the “Sustainable Tourism Master Plan” was developed aimed at the conservation of the country’s natural and cultural resources, prioritizing the destinations and communities with the most needs, seeking conscious tourists who travel to places with a high degree of responsibility and care for the destinations they visit.
On the other hand, he highlighted the importance of promoting cultural, academic and business events, “The meetings industry goes far beyond the economic.
It’s a whole. “It is the legacy and impact it leaves in the community, which is difficult to measure, but which is powerful for governments to understand the need to support its development with public investment in the promotion of tourism,” she explained.
The director of Promtur Panama also highlighted that Barranquilla is an incredible city and its ecosystem and public-private coordination demonstrate it. “They have to seriously bet on the meetings tourism industry to reach the first level and be a benchmark,” she added. Finally, she invited governments to continue supporting the strengthening of the industry, making available the collaboration that Promtur and Panama can offer. Another of the great axes of this panel was the dynamization and the tools that should be offered to tourists to find the best offers. Samy Bessudo, president of Aviatur, expressed that those who are linked to this industry must always remember that tourists look for the best price and the fastest connectivity, which forces us to constantly adapt to overcome this challenge and promote responsible tourism.
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