Tobago eyes new connections at ITB Berlin trade show

AFTER a four-year absence owing to the pandemic, Tobago will participate in ITB Berlin trade show seeking to solidify partnerships and create new ones. ITB Berlin will be held at Messe Berlin GmbH with the theme "Open For Change" from Match 7 to 9 in Berlin, Germany.

Tobago Tourism Agency Limited (TTAL) chairman Alicia Edwards discussed the trade show on Monday as she spoke on the Tobago Updates morning show prior to her departure.

“ITB is the largest trade show in Germany; ITB is important because the German and Scandinavian market is critical for Tobago businesses," Edwards said. "This foray is important for Tobago because the last time we were at ITB was in 2019 and because there has been a change of leadership at all levels, it’s important for the reconnection to happen and for the conversations to happen.

"Tourism is all about relationships and during covid19, a lot of people moved, left, closed, died, restructured and so there is a need for that re-engagement on behalf of Tobago,”

She said the German market is important to the island's tourism product.

"Tobago has had a start-stop, start-stop arrangement with the German market, and we want to ensure that we start properly this time and that we do all the things necessary to build a sustainable and lasting and consistent strategy in that part of the world.”

ITB Berlin is the world's largest business-to-business travel trade fair for hotels, tourism boards, travel agencies, system providers, airlines and car rental companies. Questioned on what would be marketed, she said there are different kinds of trade shows noting that ITB 2023 is different to previous years.

“It is only a business-to-business show. What that means is that we’ll only be talking to airlines, we’ll only be talking to trade partners and one of the peculiar things about the German market, and more so since covid19, is that a lot of people have returned to booking holidays through travel agents and tour operators.”

She said covid19 has taught people that while online booking has advantages, “if there is a hiccup, if there is a problem, if there is a shutdown, you’re more likely to get a refund or get your ticket and your stay revalidated if you go through an operator or a travel agent.”

She said there will not be much marketing of the destination from a consumer perspective but more talking about the ways that Tobago can be listed as part of the operations for various companies.

“What kind of connections we can make for airlines, discussions that we can make for niche markets – so it’s a different kind of show and so the marketing continues but it continues at a different level. When people talk about marketing, people talk about consumer marketing – the things you can see – but the more important work happens with the arrangement.”

She said gathering the data on Tobago has been challenging.

“The data has been difficult to gather because data comes from Tobago people on the ground: it comes from hotels and bed and breakfast providing information on their occupancy levels on a regular basis and they willing to provide that; it comes from tour operators talking about the kinds and numbers and the quantities of the tours that they’ve booked.

"It requires people to give us feedback on some of the things we do. If we go on an activation on behalf of Tobagonians, we go on a dive activation or we go on a weddings activation, it's difficult sometimes to measure the impact it has immediately or in the long-term on bookings.”

She said data can only be collected from people who are willing to give out information, and the Tobago public has been found to be very economical with their willingness to provide info.

“It’s not because we want to know your business, we don’t want to know how much money you make – but we really need to know exactly what is happening so that we can measure the impact of the plans we have.”

She said TTAL has been collecting occupancy data and date on arrivals at the airport, seaport and cruise ships.

“Late last year, the agency undertook a training programme with a lot of the team with an artificial intelligence software called Power BI and one of the things that we hoped to do by the middle of this year is to publish the data that we have on our website so that anybody who has a mobile phone can go on to our website and see what we have.

"It would not be real-time; the goal would really be to get to the place you can go online, and you can see real-time data but that requires some co-ordination with the immigration department. The kinds of data we can collect from people coming in, is limited by what the immigration form says, it's limited by the privacy laws, so it’s a whole lot of conversations and linkages that has to happen in our space to ensure that we can make the decisions that we need to ensure that we can make the decisions that we have to make.”