Investour, African meeting point in Fitur

Twenty African Tourism ministers and around 300 attendees are the provisional figures from the Investment Forum and Tourism Businesses in Africa, Investour 2015, to be held on 29th January as part of Fitur. Among the 22 ministers of the continent that have already confirmed their presence in the forum are tourism industry heavyweights such as Cape Verde, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe, and other countries who are in the process of expansion such as Mozambique and Madagascar.

The call for Investour of this year has caused great excitement, so that the number of ministers who have come over  from Africa has almost doubled with regards to other editions and the number of attendees is also expected to exceed those of other years. So far, the presence of 48 countries and 163 African tourist projects have been confirmed in what will be the great platform of the tourism business in Africa in Fitur and an excellent opportunity for Spanish companies and investors to see first hand the opportunities that are offered to them.

The forum will be opened by the Minister of Industry, Energy and Tourism, José Manuel Soria; the President of the Executive Committee of Ifema, Luis Eduardo Cortés; Secretary General of UNWTO, Taleb Rifai, and the Casa África's general director, Luis Padrón. Secretary of State for Tourism, Isabel Borrego, will be responsible for closing this initiative.

Investour celebrates its sixth edition in Fitur, organised by Casa África, the World Tourism Organization (WTO) and Fitur. It works as a platform for dialogue between governments, institutions and African entrepreneurs and around the world to work on internationalization plans, investment and tourism cooperation in Africa.

The forum will host two round tables formed by recognised experts in those where key themes for the promotion and development of tourism in Africa will be addressed. The first, called Investment in Human Capital, will focus on the significant work that governments in the African continent are playing in improving infrastructures and roads and delve into the need for the public and private sectors to join forces and work together to develop a tourist service of better quality. The challenges facing the continent

today and their impact on the level of foreign tourism investment will be the discussion line to be followed in the second round table of the programme; The impact of Africa's image in Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in the tourism sector: Position and Trends. Here, the emphasis will be on issues such as the shortage of existing foreign injection in the tourism sector compared to other sectors such as oil, gas and mining.

In the afternoon, Investour be devoted to B2B meetings that bring together businessmen from around the world interested in participating in tourism projects presented at the forum with the African businessmen who defend them. On this occasion, African ministers and government experts have expressed their desire to take part in these meetings, which aim to connect potential investors with ideas that need financial or any other type of support.