The Minister of Tourism, Lic. Jose Napoleon Duarte Duran has announced that El Salvador will host the 11th Central America Travel Market (CATM) in October 2017, with the aim of further cementing the positioning of Central America as a tourist destination as well as encouraging the development of new business relationships.

The event will be organised and promoted by the National Tourism Authorities, the Federation of Central American Tourism Chambers (FEDECATUR) and the Central America Tourism Agency (CATA).

El Salvador was chosen to host the event at the 99th Central American Tourism Council which took place in Roatan, Honduras last April. The event is expecting to welcome 100 tourism companies including 80 buyers, specialised in multi-destination products from South America, Europe and the United States and 20 international journalists.

Mr Jose Napoleon Duarte Duaran said: “The Central America Travel Market has established itself as an outstanding event for promoting tourism in Central America including multi-destination travel, tourism products and knowledge of the region”.

In 2014, the format of the show was changed after a reassessment of the impact of different markets and opened up to the North American market as well as the European one.

According to Duarte, the event will bring together ministers and tourism authorities from the Latin American region, wholesalers from Europe and the United States, international media and approximately 100 sellers from Central America.

“We are currently implementing changes to CATM in order to be more aggressive and to have more of an impact with our marketing strategies” said Duarte