The second Takulandilani Malawi International Tourism Exposition (Expo) has been slated for the month end of April, the Department of Tourism has said.
\nMalawi hosted the first edition of the Expo from August 30 to September 1 2017, which saw over 80 exhibitors attending the event. This year, the Expo will be held from April 26 to 28.
\nThe Expo aims at offering a platform for Malawi to showcase its tourism products as well as offering an opportunity to local, regional and international buyers to interface and discuss how best to package Malawi\u2019s tourism products for increased product awareness and eventual returns.
\nDirector of Tourism in the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Tourism, Isaac Katopola, said the Expo offers great public relation opportunities for Malawi, consequently increasing the country\u2019s visibility as a tourist destination.
\n\u201cWhen you spend money to host a buyer and then they immediately include the products in their packages and also give you reviews that feature in magazines that have big circulation such as Elle, Forbes, Cosmopolitan and Harper\u2019s Bazaar, the value these generate in terms of advertising goes beyond hundreds of thousands of dollars,\u201d he said.
\nKatopola further said the biggest beneficiaries of tourism exhibitions, Malawi tourism operators, have expressed satisfaction on the benefits of Mit 2017 and have expressed interest in participating in this year\u2019s event.
\n\u201cLet me reiterate that this year the Expo will be bigger and better in terms of targeted buyers, exhibitors, activities and entertainment and other outdoor events. The decision to host the event in April has been arrived at so as to attract more buyers and also to push for inclusion of Malawi holiday packages in the next holiday season, which starts from June every year globally,\u201d he said.
\nMalawi Tourism Council President, Oswald Bwemba, said the event is worth looking forward to.
\nHe said, with adequate preparation time this year, the tourism industry is expecting more international buyers and media, as well as local exhibitors.
\n\u201cSuch shows are an important platform which exposes local operators to international buyers. This creates an opportunity for operators to make business deals and it is one way of showcasing our business to the world.
\n\u201cAs pointed out, tourism operators would like to see a lot of foreign tour operators or buyers and foreign media. This is the main reason almost all operators exhibit,\u201d Bwemba said. He then rated last year\u2019s event as a success.
\n\u201cWe had a combined total of 25 foreign buyers and media. We should be able to attract many more this year, \u201che said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The second Takulandilani Malawi International Tourism Exposition (Expo) has been slated for the month end of April, the Department of Tourism has said. Malawi hosted the first edition of the Expo from August 30 to September 1 2017, which saw over 80 exhibitors attending the event. This year, the Expo will be held from April […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":59116,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-59113","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59113","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59113"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59113\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":59117,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59113\/revisions\/59117"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59116"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}