A seminar presents tourism market profiles of Italy and Spain

Amman– In order to help travel and tourism industry professionals in Jordan develop successful marketing programs, the USAID Jordan Tourism Development Project and the Jordan Tourism Board (JTB) gave a workshop that examined market demands, trends and opportunities in two key markets.  Today's workshop, the second in a series of workshops entitled "Know Your Market to Grow Your Market", presented the Jordanian travel industry with detailed information and statistics on the Italian and Spanish travel markets.

Minister of Tourism and Antiquities, H.E. Mr. Zeid Goussous, opened the event and highlighted the need to extend the existing tourist season and develop new markets and market segments to fill the off-season. He said, “To achieve this we must understand each of our target markets, and the segments within those markets. We must understand their trends and insights and react to them accordingly.We must respond to the new ways tourists choose and purchase travel from each market.”

“The information provided within the profiles gives insight into market trends and traveler preferences and this will enable the industry to adopt more effective marketing approaches that are based on the requirements of each market and its segments. This will put the sector collectively on the same track towards increasing tourist arrivals and tourism revenues,” said Nayef H. Al Fayez, Managing Director of JTB.

“These profiles will help Jordan’s tourism sector understand their target markets so that marketing and promotion can be specifically customized in order to be effective,” said Mr. Ibrahim Osta, USAID/Jordan Tourism Development Project Chief of Party.

This workshop follows the first one launched in October 2010 which covered the UK market. In total, profiles for each the ten market countries where the JTB has a representative office have been developed and will be presented to the industry as a package, providing a useful reference on these markets. These are USA, UK, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Austria, India, Netherlands and Russia.

International speakers with in-depth knowledge of the Italian and Spanish travel markets shared their expertise with Jordan’s travel industry, primarily inbound tour operators and hotels, providing valuable insight into these markets. Attendees were presented with the latest market trends and opportunities, how to develop programs specialized towards travelers from Italy and Spain and methods to attract business online.

For example, the Spanish travel market was shown to have strong growth potential with the greatest opportunities, at least in the medium term, to be among older Spaniards eager for new and memorable cultural experiences. However, it also appeared that young people are enthusiastic outbound travelers – and all are easy to reach through social media – although they are very price-conscious and the trend is very much towards late booking. As for the Italian market, it is ranked as the world’s sixth largest market for outbound travel by UNWTO in terms of international travel spend, which amounted to US$27.8 billion in 2009. In actual trip volume, IPK International ranks Italy fifth in Europe (after Germany, the UK, France and the Netherlands), accounting for some 22 million trips in the same year. Arrivals to Jordan from Italy have been rising steadily.

This information will help the industry design market-specific programs that specifically appeal to the travel markets in Italy and Spain. It will also help Jordan plan and develop marketing tools that are more effective in reaching these tourist markets. Ultimately this will help to increase visitors from Italy and Spain to Jordan.

The market profiles were developed by the USAID tourism project and the JTB. The next workshop will take place in February and cover the German market.