The Protagonists of the Exhibition

The exhibitors
Every year the Exhibition presents exhibitors coming from all over the world.
In the edition 2008 the Exhibition had 400 exhibition areas and more than 1600 international exhibitors.

The exhibitors are:
- National, Regional and Local Tourist Offices
- Municipalities, Province - Region Tourism Departments, Association of municipalities
- Consortiums and Associations of category
- Ministries of Tourism and Embassies
- Hotels of each categories, Hotel Chains, Country farms, B&B
- Tour Operators
- Holiday villages and campings

In the past edition 2008 there were more than 60 Countries: the appreciated Swiss and Italian destinations, the so welcomed European Countries like Greece, Spain, Croatia, German, Austria, Romania, Bulgaria, Poland, Czech Republic...
The Latin America area, represented by Bolivia, Colombia, Chile, Ecuador, Panama...the Caribbean, Malaysia, Jamaica, Morocco, Syria...An almost complete presentation of the 5 Continents tourist offer. Tour Operators area, great novelty of the past edition, that boasted prestigious names like Teorema Tour, Eurotravel, Condor, Tamarindo Viaggi, Emotion Argentina, Simply Travel...

The visitors
The public visiting the Swiss International Holiday Exhibition is quite heterogeneous and so interested. The fair tends to satisfy all the different needs and requirements. Families, singles, young and middle-aged people: everyone who comes to visit the Swiss International Holiday Exhibition wants to find the answers for his holidays, like practical and low-cost solutions for near destinations, good ideas for long and eventful journeys, and, often, they want to book their journeys directly from the operators presented at the exhibition. The visitors come from these rich and steady user basins:

A study carried out by the Swiss Tourism Federation on the analysis of the Swiss tourist market details extremely interesting data about customs and numbers of the Swiss travellers - in spite of market movements, the travel habit of the Swiss people didn't suffer from the market drop: they spend on average 3600-4100 CHF per person and they go on holiday at least three times per year - Swiss people tends to book or organize both winter and summer journeys in great advance, for such reason the autumn is the best moment to promote yourself on the Swiss market - Swiss people travels mainly to visit landscapes and nature, to discover cultural tourism (archaeology, art, architecture) and to make culinary experiences - the Swiss client is willing to spend much money for his holidays, for such reason he is also so exigent Besides, Lugano Town Council is the strategic location since it is easily accesible from the north and south. The 55% of public comes from the whole Swiss Confederation, the 45% comes from the near Italian regions (Lombardia and Piemonte). Such data makes the Swiss International Holiday Exhibition unique. It is a tourist fair that boasts of the most number of Swiss presence abroad.

The professional operators
The Exhibition is an important occasion to make business appointments with specialized tourist operators. The first day of the exhibition (the 29th of October) will be dedicated to one-to-one meetings with professional operators and specialized press. Thanks to an on line booking application the exhibitors will have the possibility to fix one-to-one meetings with buyers. The application offers the opportunity to send and receive requests for appointment. Local and international buyers, Travel Agencies, Tour Operators, Travel Manager Coordinators, Associations, Skiing Clubs, journalists will join the exhibition in order to fix meetings with the exhibitors in great advance. In the past edition there were more than 200 international buyers with more than 3600 business meetings, the most of them ended in succesful business.

The institutions
The Exhibition is a strategic event for the public relations among institutions. Every years, hundreds of Mayors, Councillors, Ambassadors, Ministers and other political authorities take advantage of the Exhibition in order to establish international relations, sinergies and collaborations between authorities and destinations, twinnings, relations with Lugano Town Council and other Swiss institutions. For such reason, the Organization Board cooperates with the Public Relations Department of Lugano Town Council in order to help and support the participating institutions. Besides, the Exhibition dedicates one day to the authorities and to the institutional bodies. The latter do their utmost for the tourist promotion, can enjoy seminars and formation times about tourism and technological thematics, individual meetings with local authorities, appointments programme and Gala Dinners to establish more informal relations.