Doha, Qatar: The hosting of Qatar Travel Mart (QTM) 2024 continues to solidify the country’s position as a global tourism hub. It also places Qatar as a gateway to the world and a central hub for travel and tourism as the country’s thriving tourism industry enhances confidence and security for both travellers and businesses.

Speaking to The Peninsula on the sidelines of the exhibition, Rafael Martinez Urbina, Commercial Affairs Counselor at Embassy of El Salvador in Qatar said, for El Salvador Embassy it is a very valuable opportunity to be participating in Qatar Travel Mart 2024. “We find this platform very strategic to position El Salvador to the Qatari community and also the GCC. People can come to the stand and get to know what the country has to offer to the international community.”

It is a very strategic platform as the organisation is always trying to innovate the concept and it’s the center of a culture exchange, he added.

Urbina further said, “We are encouraging Qatari investments to be made and are looking to sign different agreements. We also encourage the economic exchange between both countries. 

“We have synergies regarding hospitality and are inviting all the groups that own hotel chains to take a look in our country. Right now, we have a lot of growth in tourism, so by establishing hotels, restaurants it’s easy as we are facilitating the process to open business in El Salvador and investment incentives as well. El Salvador is welcoming and opening the doors to the people who would like to travel and get to know our culture.” 

Regarding tourism Urbina pointed out “Right now we are positioning our volcanoes, hiking, surfing, and gastronomy as a matter to generate the interest to elevate the tourism.”

El Salvador can be crossed east to west from volcano to volcano. The country is part of the Pacific Ring of Fire with 196 volcanoes across the national territory, 23 of which are considered active. 90 percent of the country is made up of volcanic materials.

Also talking to The Peninsula, Carlos Zambrano Sanchez, Counselor of the Embassy of Ecuador to Qatar, noted “We are promoting the products of our country, our food, cultural traditions and tourism so that many people know the wonderful marvels in South America. We have received visitors from the Gulf countries – Saudi, UAE, Oman and also Africa and they are interested in visiting.”

“We are displaying Ecuadorian coffee and also have infusion tea, coffee and flowers and roses that are sold here in Qatar.”

Qatar is a destination for many aspects, cultural and also political. The exhibition is growing consistently every year in terms of increase in the numbers of visitors, Sanchez noted. 

On the sidelines of the exhibition Jonas Schneider, Director of Sales at Bürgenstock Resort Lake Lucerne told The Peninsula how QTM is getting better and better every year. 

“Here at the QTM, we are promoting four properties – the Bürgenstock Resort, Schweizerhof Bern, Royal Savoy Lausanne, and the Adrian, London. All of this is under the Bürgenstock collection, owned and operated by Katara Hospitality,” Schneider said.

There was a huge investment from Katara Hospitality to bring this alive again with the reopening in 2017 for the Bürgenstock Resort Lake Lucerne, which is part of the Burgen collection. 

“It’s a whole year round property, so every season of the year there are plenty of things to do in the nature activities. We have a very diverse selection of different restaurants, cuisines from easy casual to fine dining.” 

In addition, “we have one of the biggest spas; there was a huge investment from the Katara Hospitality for the spa. It is the biggest spa in Europe you can find which is more than 10,000 square meters, with several floors, unique infinity pool overlooking the entire lake. We do have residences as well.”  

This combination as a destination resort is very unique in Switzerland. “I think it helps us to attract a lot of Qataris visiting the resort and we see a great increase. More and more Qataris are travelling to Switzerland to experience our resort,” he added.