BTL (Bolsa de Turismo de Lisboa) is the biggest and most important tourism fair in Portugal organized by Feira Internacional de Lisboa and takes place in Lisbon annually at Fil – Feira Internacional de Lisboa at Parque das Nações. The BTL Travel Market is for business owners in the tourism industry, aspiring business owners in the tourism sector, travel enthusiasts, tourism influencers, leisure activity providers and international travel organizations. BTL will provide the attendees with the opportunity to gain insights from state government tourism departments, tour operators, travel agents, hotels, resorts, adventure tourism, airlines, car rentals, railways, coach operators, cruise lines, maps, guides, travel, accessories & equipment for camping, biking, trekking, photography etc. The BTL Travel Market usually features themed workshops, demonstrations, destinations, and cultural presentations and gourmet food tastings.
Started in 1989, this year will be the 32nd event. It has gained prominence as one of the best international tourism fairs to attend in the world. Fostering new contacts and promoting the best deals is one of the premises of BTL 2020. Something which so far has been achieved with remarkable success, very much due to the capacity to innovate and anticipate market needs.The exhibitors usually include state government tourism departments, travel agencies, tour operators, resorts, cruise lines, hotels, car rentals, airlines and providers of equipment for outdoor activities like camping in Portugal.At the BTL Travel Market, you can expect to see many different activities, especially from the guest destination. The chosen guest destination showcases the best their region or municipality has to offer in terms of tourism. The five-day event brings together professionals in the tourism industry to experience what Portugal and other international destinations have to offer.
You can expect to see the following :
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Art and heritage display
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Gourmet food tastings
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Portuguese gastronomy demonstrations and tastings
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Wine tourism displays
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Travel Destinations
Is it worth attending the BTL Travel Market?
If you are a tourism professional, this is the event you need to attend because there are lots of business connections and networking opportunities that can be gained from attending the event. It also helps you to identify various marketing actions and identify the behaviors and needs of your target audience.
From my personal point of view as a travel enthusiast, going to the BTL Travel Market helps you to gain an insight into tourism operations and travel agencies. You will also be able to relate to professionals in the industry.
Go and see what Portugal has to offer and if you are lucky, you can win some discounts for your next Portugal holiday destinations.
BTL - Lisbon International Tourism in addition to hundreds of exhibitors from all over the world, the BTL includes theme workshops, destination, and cultural presentations and gourmet tastings. BTL takes place in Lisbon. Organized by Feira Internacional de Lisboa, the fair takes place at Fil - Feira Internacional De Lisboa. Found in 1989, the event runs every year. BTL will gather industry influencers and aspiring business owners from the Travel, Holiday, Leisure sector to network and form new business connections. The complete event profile is available on the official website. BTL is increasingly one of the most important tourism fairs in the world. BTL is a Business and networking area for all tourism professionals and is also an open stage for the debate and discussion of the sector. BTL is also a place of entertainment and tourism promotion for the public. The five-day event which began in the month of March is receiving an excellent response with market leaders increasing their stand size followed by participation from a global tourism market.
BTL- Bolsa de Turismo de Lisboa - is the biggest and most important annual travel event held in Portugal. This year, the Lisbon Travel Market invited travel startups to apply for a space in the BTL LAB powered by the recently launched Tourism Innovation Center. With the BTL Lab, the BTL reinforces its commitment to a platform for dissemination and content, during the fair, which launches and announces new projects, and establishes professional networking promoting the development and business of innovative products and services for tourism.In its 31st edition, BTL's organization is expecting over 1,200 exhibitors to be showcasing their services and products to more than 77,000 visitors. Among the exhibitors and visitors, there will be travel enthusiasts, service providers, influencers, as well as travel and other organizations within the hospitality industry from all over the world.
BTL Travel Market is also expected to host over 5,000 business meetings this year - so, yes, this is a great place for networking, meeting other professionals in the industry and creating new synergies that are great to leverage your business.Aside from the exhibitors, BTL Travel Market will also showcase themed workshops, travel destinations, cultural presentations, and gourmet food tastings. This event offers the general public the opportunity to choose new destinations for their vacations at highly competitive prices, wrapped in an atmosphere of festivity, where music and gastronomy are a constant presence.The five-day event brings professionals and the general public together to experience what best Portugal has to offer, so expect to encounter wonders such as wine tasting from the Setúbal Peninsula, embroidery samples from Viana do Castelo or food tasting like Ovar’s typical sponge cake.
Lisbon International Tourism Fair is a growing international Tourism fair. BTL is a starting point for big business. Lisbon international Tourism fair helps you to identify new distribution channels, organize various marketing actions and measure their effectiveness. Portugal's largest tourism industry and holidays sector fair BTL - Bolsa de Tourismo de Lisboa - starts in what the organizers are heralding as the "biggest fair event yet." Every year, BTL Travel Market offers the chosen guest destinations the opportunity to promote their tourism-related products and services. If you have a startup in tourism you know how meeting the right people and closing significant partnerships is important. You need to be in the right place, at the right time, and that's just what BTL, the International Tourism Exhibition in Lisbon, will do for you.All the main players in tourism will be there, from world-known hotel chains to famous travel bloggers and music festivals, making BTL the epicenter for tourism-related businesses.
The BTL director said it was "interesting" too that increasingly BTL was attracting linked to the tourism sector that was not necessarily from the transport and accommodation segments but from a "wide variety of areas, particularly those which design a tourism offer package."Fair director Fátima Vila Maior said the pavilions will be packed with companies and “I can confidently say that this year we will hit a record in terms of companies, entities, and organizations.”The place chosen for this event was once again the stand of the Porto e Norte Tourism Entity, in an event that was attended by important institutional representatives of the country and businessmen from the tourism sector, and in which the great values of the fair that position it at world level were once again evident.This new area of BTL will have B2B programming on the professional's days and a specific program for the public, at the weekend. Space will receive presentations of initiatives, small shows and will also integrate a lounge area.
During the stay at the BTL in Lisbon, meetings were also held with representatives of tourism from other parts of Portugal such as Termas Centro, as well as the meeting with the president of the Associação das Termas de Portugal, Victor Leal.In addition to special holiday offers, visitors can also find various activities and animations, including BTL Blogger Travel Awards, the contest that awards the best Portuguese travel blogs that have stood out throughout the year.This action aims to raise a collective attitude of interest towards the discovery of the diverse cultural heritage, historical, gastronomy and natural landscapes that Portugal has to offer.BTL Cultural presents itself as a show space for cultural entities of their country, while it is intended to be a core discussion and reflection on the sector, focusing on the positioning of these agents in the face of the challenges of national tourism. Alongside the partner institution, which developed the project in direct collaboration with the Lisbon Tourism Exchange, the Oriente Foundation, the Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology (MAAT).
The 2019 results speak for themselves. BTL is increasingly one of the most important tourism fairs in the world. It is also for national and professional tourism associations, official organizations, agents and representatives from the banking and insurance sectors. The fair is expected to attract over 77,000 visitors overtaking the record set last year which saw 75,000 visitors. Also, over 1,200 exhibitors are expected to participate in the event. The BTL Travel Market is also scheduled to host 5,000 business meetings between 400 hosted buyers and tourism professionals both local and foreign. As Portugal's main tourism exhibition, BTL, commences in Lisbon, the hotel industry's leading cloud platform, SiteMinder, announces it has secured a group-wide deal to power the online distribution for one of the country's top hotel chains, SANA Hotels. For the public, it is the opportunity to know new destinations and solutions, aswel as compare offers and buy at highly competitive prices. All this in a spectacular atmosphere of celebration, color, and joy, where music and gastronomy are a regular presence. For the public, this is the opportunity to discover new destinations and solutions, to compare proposals and buy at highly competitive prices.
BTL is an event full of challenges and proposals. For professionals linked to the tourism sector, it’s an opportunity to find professional buyers and also to meet the competition. To analyze the trend of markets and position their offer in an innovative and competitive way. BTL has always an extensive program of activities running concurrently to the fair: music events, tastings, and samplings, conferences and workshops. Moreover, the Employability Network will promote a job network dedicated to the tourism sector. The Blogger Travel Awards will highlight again the best travel-related blogs.BTL has created a special path for children aged 6-12, KIDS ROUTE, which provides them with the opportunity to get familiar with all the regional entities, including the National Institute of Nature Conservation.Their purpose is to reinforce their existing business relations, establish new business and get the real vision of the Portuguese Travel Market in the field of Cultural, Adventure and MICE Tours. As well as showcasing the best of what Portugal has to offer in terms of tourism and hospitality, the event also features an international section promoting destinations from around the globe. The doors open from 10 am to professionals and from 6 pm to the general public.
The largest national tourism exhibition starts today. Five days, two dedicated to tourism professionals and three to the general public will be dedicated to the tourist offer in Portugal and in the whole world where the center area of the country and Morocco will be featured in a special way. For this year's edition, more than 80,000 visitors are expected. Fernando Medina and Prime Minister António Costa attended the opening.The fair counts on the main travel agencies and tour operators present in the Portuguese market, and is destined not only to the professionals of the sector but also to the travelers who seek to know the innovations in terms of destinations or hotels, or to mark the next vacation or weekend getaway.Fátima Vila Maior, FIL fair director and in charge of BTL, who believes that this is "an excellent opportunity for companies that want to showcase their portfolio of products and services, schedule meetings with potential clients, increase their networking and synergies in an exclusive area for companies".
The BTL tourism fair is one of the major such fairs in Europe and thousands of tourism sector companies gather, attracting 65,000 visitors last year. Initially identifies the importance of this international trade fair thanks to the vicinity of the Portuguese market with Extremadura, remember that Spain is still themain destination of Portuguese tourists.During five days, the Portuguese Geoparks participated at BTL 2013 (Lisbon International Tourism Fair) promoting her territories, integrated into each Tourism Region of Portugal.This event attracted thousands of people from all the world like agencies, touristic operators. The Portuguese Geoparks have met with some of them. This year the Algarve Tourism Board is launching the Algarve Wine Route, the presentation of the now famous and re-issued 'Guide to Wines of the Algarve,’ and Mediterranean diet cooking. Each of the Algarve’s councils has designated and marked space to enable it to promote its own range of tourism products and services.
During the oficial visit of the portuguese minister of the economy, he was attracted by nuns who came from the XVI century from Arouca Convent. These nuns have shown the culture from cister Order and have promoted simultaneously the next big event to be realized in this territory, on the next May, denominated “Skills and Flavors”.The gastronomy of these territories was promoted during the show cooking and proof moments.Was present also in this fair, the Azores and Terras de Cavaleiros aspiring Geoparks with several promotional activities and local products.The participation of Portuguese geoparks in this fair was an excellent contribution to the promotion and enhancement, not only for their territories but also for the visibility of the EGN and GGN networks.The aim is not only to promote the parks and monuments under its management but also to advertise the falconry project taking place in the Gardens of the National Palace of Queluz.
Are you a travel enthusiast? Or are you looking to make business connections in the tourism and hospitality world? If you are interested in travel fairs and you are in Lisbon in March, then you have come to the right place. Here you’ll discover what the BTL Travel Market is all about, who goes, what to expect there, event details and prices.
