Moldova's tourist offer highly appreciated at specialized exhibitions in Poland, Italy

Chisinau, 14 February /MOLDPRES/ - Moldova’s tourist offer has been highly appreciated at specialized exhibition Borsa Internazionale del Turismo (BIT) from Milan, Italy. At the same time, Moldova got the Grand Prize for concept, design and logistic possibilities provided at the Tour Salon from Poznan, Poland.   

Under the umbrella of the country tourism brand Pomul Vietii (The Tree of Life) and within the international communication campaign, #BeOurGuest, Moldova was present at the aforementioned two exhibitions with a common stand. There, visitors made virtual tours to the most important tourist destinations of the country and tour operators had tens of meetings with economic agents from Italy and Poland, which complete their tourist offers with destinations focused on gastronomic tourism and light adventure tourism.      

Representatives of the Diaspora, along with two cooks, members of the Professional Association of Cooks from Italy, organized also a gastronomic show of cooking Moldovan traditional dishes, served with a glass of Moldova’s Wine. Thus, visitors could taste Moldovan pies, cabbage and grape leaf rolls, paste pigeons, and certainly, the dessert: plums with nuts and whip cream, according to a press release by the Moldova Competitiveness Project, financed by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the government of Sweden.       

“In less than four years, from the less known destination in Europe, Moldova has got to be positioned in the top 10 countries recommended for travelers by famous international publications. Therefore, we back the promotion of Moldova’s image as novel tourist destination in the central Europe, including through campaigns and well-defined activities on target markets, such as Italy and Poland,” the director at the Moldova Competitiveness Project, Doina Nistor, said.      

Moldova’s Ambassador to Italy Stela Stangaci said that “it is a true honour for Moldova to present its tourist offer for the second year in a row at the greatest event dedicated to tourism, organized in Italy. After one year, we witnessed an increase in the flow of Italian tourists coming on visit to Moldova.”     

At the Tour Salon from Poznan, Poland, Moldova’s tourist offer got the Grand Prize for concept, design and logistic possibilities provided, thus proving the quality of activities and promotion on the Polish market. The distinction comes after, in November 2017, Moldova’s stand took a similar prize at the TT Warsaw exhibition.    

“The private sector and the associative environment manage to promote more and more qualitatively the country’s image, to boost the economic relations and increase the number of foreign tourists due to discover Moldova as an attractive and accessible tourist attraction,” the director of the Moldovan Investment Attraction and Export Promotion Organization, Vitalie Zaharia, said.      

The events of this kind align to the strategic directions of tourism promotion for 2017-2019, worked out with the support of the Moldova Competitiveness Project. Last year, 42, 972 Italian citizens visited Moldova and 14,079 tourists came from Poland. Four years after being declared the less visited destination of Europe, Moldova carried out a comprehensive promotion campaign under the umbrella of the tourist brand Pomul Vietii (The Tree of Life). Thus, during the years 2016-2017, Moldova recorded a yearly average increase of 17 per cent, reaching to 3.2 million visitors.     

(Reporter V. Bercu, editor L. Alcaza)