According to organisers, "FITUR manages, year in, year out, to reinvent itself," promoting destinations across the globe.

But this year saw participants strive to respond to a call from the Madrid-based World Tourism Organisation (WTO) to use tourism as a sustainable development tool to combat poverty.

The fair took place in the week the WTO announced global tourism had hit a record high last year after a 4.5 percent rise in numbers pushed the total to 842 million, boosted by large rises in the number of visitors to and from China, which should receive an arrivals boost with next year's Beijing Olympics.

Almost half of the firms attending the gathering, which Spanish media dub the world's second-biggest after Berlin's equivalent, were from outside Spain, currently second only to France in the global destination popularity stakes, although the WTO forecasts China will overtake it by 2010.

After King Juan Carlos opened the event by labelling tourism an "essential instrument" to develop cooperation between nations, visitors jostled to see what was new and scan a range of promotions.

Four countries -- Armenia, Azerbaijan, Niger and Zimbabwe -- were first time visitors -- while Estonia and Latvia returned after missing last year's edition.

"We have registered a satisfying level of interest," a Niger spokesman said.

Europe had the largest overall representation with around 30 percent of exhibitors compared with 17 percent for the Asia-Pacific region, with Africa bringing up the rear with 10 percent.

After the WTO, a UN agency, drew up a tourism ethics 'charter' prioritising green-friendly projects, poorer nations were relying on the exhibition to place themselves on visitors' radar.

One such nation was Bolivia, represented by vice-minister for tourism Ricardo Cox, who stressed the importance of tourism for poorer countries with large indigenous populations.

"We have developed plans to involve indigenous groups directly in tourist development, whereas previously that was not the case and so they did not reap the benefits," Cox said.

"Yet it is they who really know the area and can open up their traditional culture to the visitor," Cox told AFP.

Cox said Andean nations were increasingly popular destinations for those with an adventurous streak and stressed the importance of cross-border promotion with many visitors to Bolivia coming via Peru after visiting Inca sites such as Macchu Picchu and Lake Titicaca.

He added climate change was also a challenge with nascent winter sports offerings hit by global warming.

"Climate change affects all of us, wherever we are. So the sustainable theme is truly a worldwide one," said Cox.

Cox said Bolivia was also offering "political" tourism in developing "La Ruta del Che," visits to haunts frequented by Argentine revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara, who was killed by Bolivian troops in 1967, a decade after helping Fidel Castro launch the Cuban revolution.

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