IFEMA regains the Mountain and Sustainable Tourism Fair, EXPOTURAL, for Madrid

The IFEMA calendar for 2018 incorporates as a special novelty the organisation of EXPOTURAL, the Mountain and Sustainable Tourism Fair, which returns to Madrid with a renewed project, as well as clearly international ambitions and a programme of events and activities that underscore this event as the leading encounter for experiences in and knowledge of the natural environment.

The fair, which will be held from 1-4 November 2018, will feature in its first edition of this new era more than 10,000 square metres of exhibition space related to rural, nature and adventure tourism, and a richly varied national and international offering regarding the mountain destinations around the world.

In this regard, the new project will include a wide representation of mountain sports, natural spaces, protected national parks, ornithological tourism, climbing as a new Olympic sport and adventure sports, segments that will also be extensively developed n the programme of conferences that will be accompanying the professional and commercial activity of EXPOTURAL.

The major milestones of this edition include, for one, the organisation for the first time in the field of trade fairs of the Final Stage of the Lead Climbing Spanish Cup, arranged by Entre-Prises and ABEO, for which a large 20-metre-high rockodrome will preside over the centre of the fair, representing Mount Everest.

On the other hand, in the field of information and knowledge, also for the first time in Spain, the 1st Congress on Ornithological Tourism will be held, a meeting endorsed by the positioning of Spain with 10 natural spaces for “trill seeking”, with almost 600 SPAs and 450 nomadic and migratory species, as well as the convening of the first Conference of Madrid on Sustainable Tourism and Climate Change.
There will be a series of day conference events which will also address Active Tourism and Adventure Sports, and which will involve companies dedicated to rafting, trekking, hiking and other activities concerning active and nature-based tourism.

During these days, prominence will also be given to the companies, entities and participating institutions so they can present their own projects and experiences based around two major thematic areas: The “National Parks and Protected Natural Areas”, a key element in a country like Spain that has the largest natural protected area of the European Union, and the “Mountains and their Ecosystems”, which will act as the central axis of the Fair.

A final theme will be Rural Gastronomy, as a great differentiating element for Rural Tourism, with lectures on the Mediterranean diet and the main types of differentiated rural gastronomy from different autonomous communities that are to have a presence in the Fair.

This is an intense and attractive programme open to the citizens of Madrid who are interested in the knowledge and enjoyment of Nature and Mountain tourism, always with the common denominator of the impact of Climate Change and from the perspective of responsibility for the protection of the environment.

In Spain today, tourism is one of the economic sectors with the most relevance and weight in GDP and generation of employment. Therefore, the care of its natural surroundings is a very important factor in the tourism products being offered in the country, so any change in the conditions of these spaces could have a very significant impact on the future of nature tourism.

Hence the inspiring concept that presides over the Fair as a space for reflection on Sustainable Tourism, its internal transformations, its relationship with the evolution of the vital systems of the biosphere and the care of its environment. This is an entire conception of nature whose main driver was Edmund Hillary, the first climber in the world to reach the summit of Mount Everest in 1953, and whose inspiration will hover over EXPOTURAL and Madrid.