Back from FIT: what we saw from booth 4382

One hundred and forty-three thousand people in four days. FIT turned thirty and closed with a record: 143,683 visitors, almost 50,000 of them tourism professionals, and 1,697 exhibitors from 64 countries. La Rural, which is huge, hit its limit.

This year we had our own booth for the first time. If I had to sum up the fair in one idea, it would be this: artificial intelligence stopped being the odd hallway topic. Now it's a concrete question an agency owner asks you, leaning on the counter.

Our first booth

Ten square meters in the International Pavilion, booth 4382. Five meters wide and barely two deep. A meeting table didn't fit, so we designed it as a shop window: everything happened standing up, at the counter, with people in the aisle.

On the wall there was a big QR code. You scanned it, a WhatsApp chat opened, and our assistant answered you on the spot. No brochure, no video: the product taking care of you. On the counter, caps, stickers and an invitation to enter for a getaway to Pueblo Mágico, a glamping site in the hills of Córdoba.

It worked better than we expected. People came over for the getaway or the yellow cap, and stayed to talk about how they handle their WhatsApp.

Who stopped by 4382

Travel agencies from Salta, Neuquén, Mendoza, Córdoba, Bahía Blanca and Ushuaia. Inbound operators from Montevideo. An agency from Asunción. Wholesalers from Buenos Aires. Group travel, adventure tourism, tailor-made trips.

On Monday and Tuesday, the trade-only days, the fair doesn't stop. It's the one moment of the year when the whole travel industry is in the same place: everyone comes to see what's new, what they can add and who they can do business with. Business meetings grew 56% over last year, and you could feel it in the aisles.

We also met people who weren't there to buy: operators with their own availability, tech companies, travel assistance providers. We're already talking about working together with several of them.

AI is no longer debated. People ask how

Artificial intelligence was everywhere. In the tech panels, in the operators' presentations, in the officials' speeches. Argentina's national Secretary of Tourism put it this way: "it's a tool, a help, but the travel agency is irreplaceable".

In one of the panels there was a line that stuck with me: technology levels access to information, but not judgment. It's what we've been saying for a while: AI won't replace travel agents, it gives the human part back.

From the counter, you could feel the change in the questions. Nobody asked whether this works anymore. They asked which one, for what part of the business, and how much it costs to start.

And what agencies wanted was pretty clear. They don't want an AI that answers anything, or that treats every message like a sale. They want something that tells the curious apart from the person who wants to travel, gathers the trip details and hands the inquiry to a salesperson when there's real interest. With the right tone, and knowing when to step aside.

Trust is still human. Nobody disputes that. What changes is where the salesperson spends the day: if inquiries get lost along the way, there's no time left for the part of the job nobody else can do.

What we took home

We came back with about thirty contacts from agencies, operators and potential partners from across the country and the region. Within a week we had ten demos booked. For a first booth of ten square meters, that's more than we expected.

And we took home a confirmation. At the FAEVYT Congress in Mendoza we saw AI stop being hallway talk. At FIT we saw it at scale: thousands of professionals who no longer wonder whether AI will enter tourism, but which one makes sense and what for.

The next FIT runs October 2 to 5, 2027. We'll be there.

Thanks to everyone who stopped by 4382.