Tbilisi Hosted 3rd Annual B2B Luxury & MICE Workshop
Rooms Hotel Tbilisi this year hosted the third edition of the prestigious professional luxury travel event B2B Luxury & MICE Workshop. As an established specialist travel industry event, the B2B Luxury & MICE Workshop brings together a variety of luxury hospitality and destination travel products in Georgia, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan, and introduces them to new markets, where travel and specifically Luxury travel is emerging.
The Workshop focused on luxury and up-market travel products including luxury hotels and resorts, destination management companies and travel destinations such as national and regional tourism boards and allowed local Georgian travel companies to have one-to-one meetings with prestigious international exhibitors.
This year’s B2B Luxury & MICE Workshop brought prestigious new destinations to the Georgian market for the first time, including the tourism boards of Catalonia and Tenerife, and saw the return of the national tourism boards of Spain and Slovenia. There were also some new hospitality participants including international hospitality brands such as the Intercontinental - Vienna Hotel from Austria, the historical Hotel Metropol, in Moscow. S7, Russia’s 2nd largest airline also took part in the event for the first time, as did Turkish Airlines. There was also a number of hotel and DMC representatives from Slovenia and Croatia.
Slovenia and its potential were put into the spotlight in a presentation delivered by Slovenian Tourism Board representative Anja Bezgovsek, followed by B2B meetings and, that evening, by a cocktail gala at Tiflis Veranda.
GEORGIA TODAY spoke to some attendees to gauge the success of the event.
“It was organized to the highest level,” said Grecotel Hotels & Resorts Director of Sales, Michalis Markakis. “The workshop helped me to meet new clientele and prolong and advance collaboration with already existing partners,” he told us, noting in particular the need to improve air transport between Georgia and Greece. “The air transportation sector needs to be advanced, as there are no direct flights from a number of cities in Greece. Direct flights are especially important for families with minors. We also plan to revise the prices of flights. As for the workshop, through it we have high expectations to attract more clients”.
“This is my second time attending this workshop,” said Ia Gedevanishvili, Director of Check-In Travel Agency. “It was, as ever, an extremely interesting and engaging event which contributes to the establishment of partnerships with important and useful companies, which then helps us to boost sales. Slovenia is one of the best but lesser developed destinations which we need to work on and to make large-scale investments in”, she said.
B2B Luxury & MICE Workshop was organized by the British company TMI, a travel marketing and communication company which is part of Travel Consul alliance (www.travelconsul.com), working in partnership with Brandor Consulting, Georgia. GEORGIA TODAY and OK! magazine were official media partners of the event. A complete list of foreign participants and the event details can be found here: www.B2Btravelworkshop.com and here: Facebook page.
By Ketevan Kvaratskheliya