FITUR4all Madrid Forum And Awards, January 2026

FITUR4all is moving into final program mode for FITUR 2026 at IFEMA MADRID in Madrid, Spain. Destinations, tourism companies, and advisors working on accessible and inclusive travel will see the core professional forum concentrated on Friday, January 23, 2026, with additional public facing activity on Saturday, January 24, 2026. The practical next step is to plan Madrid schedules around the January 23 forum day, and to treat award related activity as observation and benchmarking, since the FITUR 4all 2026 Awards entry call is now closed.

The FITUR4all Madrid forum shift is a move from solicitation to delivery. IFEMA MADRID has confirmed FITUR dates of January 21 to 25, 2026, and has positioned FITUR4all as a flagship accessibility track within the wider trade fair week. The professional forum is being framed around Spain's "Think you know Spain? Think again" destination positioning, and it is designed as a convening point for administrations, destinations, companies, and international organizations that have to convert accessibility commitments into bookable, reliable trip components.

Awards are still central to how FITUR4all signals leadership, but the window to submit projects for the 2026 awards cycle has already closed. Earlier FITUR communications set December 5, 2025 as the submission deadline, and the FITUR awards information page now lists the FITUR 4all 2026 call for entries as closed. For travelers and advisors, that matters because it changes what is actionable, attendance and procurement conversations are the levers now, not last minute award applications.

Who Is Affected

The immediate audience is professional, tourism boards, hotel groups, attraction operators, DMCs, tour platforms, and travel advisors who build accessible itineraries and need consistent delivery across transport, lodging, and experiences. International organizations and standards oriented groups also have a stake, because shared definitions and verified accessibility data are what make accessible travel scalable across markets.

Travelers benefit indirectly, but in a measurable way. When destinations standardize accessibility information and require vendors to publish consistent, auditable details, booking friction drops and trip reliability rises. That has downstream effects on everything from room allocation, to accessible vehicle supply, to how museums schedule quiet hours and step free routing. As Spain positions itself as both a leading accessible destination and a source market, decisions made at sector forums can shape which products get funded, marketed, and maintained through 2026.

There is also a capacity and logistics angle for anyone attending in person. FITUR week concentrates meetings into short windows, and that tends to tighten hotel inventory, transfer availability, and meeting space near IFEMA MADRID, especially on peak forum days like Friday, January 23, 2026. For accessibility focused delegates, that pressure can be sharper, because step free rooms and accessible transport fleets are often a smaller slice of total supply, so late booking raises risk.

What Travelers Should Do

If attending FITUR4all, lock the basics early. Anchor on Friday, January 23, 2026 for the professional forum, and build extra buffer for arrivals, hotel check in, and transfers, especially if you need step free rooms or accessible vehicles. In Madrid, Spain, winter weather is less likely to shut down mobility, but trade fair demand can still create delays and scarcity, so reserve what you need rather than assuming day of availability.

Use a clear decision threshold for changes. If your attendance depends on a specific roundtable topic, speaker, or meeting slot, hold refundable inventory until the final agenda and your must have meetings are confirmed. If your goal is broad networking and market scanning, commit earlier, because the cost of late booking during FITUR week often exceeds the benefit of waiting for the last program tweaks.

In the 24 to 72 hours before arrival, monitor the published roundtable schedule, venue access notes, and any last minute adjustments to session timing. Also confirm your own accessibility chain, hotel room configuration, transfer vehicle type, and any assistance requests, because the most common failure mode in accessible business travel is not the flight, it is the last mile mismatch between what was assumed and what was reserved.

Background

FITUR is one of the world's largest international tourism trade fairs, and FITUR4all is its dedicated accessibility and inclusion section, developed with IMPULSA IGUALDAD. The forum format matters because accessible tourism is a system problem, not a single vendor feature. A destination can have accessible hotels, but if ground transport, attractions, wayfinding, and reliable information do not align, the trip still fails in practice.

The travel system ripple usually runs in two layers. First, the forum influences destination strategy and procurement, what standards are required, how vendors are audited, and what data is published for travelers and advisors. Second, those requirements pressure suppliers outside the immediate event space, including hotel room retrofits, accessible transfer fleets, guided tour operations, and attraction capacity management. When destinations publish verified information and set delivery expectations, it reduces misconnect style failures for accessible trips, missed museum access, unusable bathrooms, or transfers that cannot accommodate mobility equipment.

The market forces behind this are not subtle. The World Health Organization estimates 1.3 billion people, about 16 percent of the global population, experience significant disability, and notes that the number is increasing in part due to population ageing. Industry reporting tied to TUR4all Travel's Accessible Tourism Trends work has also framed accessible tourism as a fast growing segment and an economic opportunity alongside a social responsibility. For readers tracking the Spain specific angle, see Spain Leads Accessible Tourism, U.S. Travelers Top Spend for the demand side context, and California Accessibility Hub Opens for Inclusive Travel for an example of how destinations operationalize accessibility through centralized planning tools.

Sources

• FITUR 4all
• FITUR 4all 2026 reinforces the leadership of accessible tourism as a driver of global transformation in the industry
• FITUR and IMPULSA IGUALDAD make advances in the promotion of global tourism without borders and announce the 3rd FITUR 4all Awards
• FITUR AWARDS
• Disability and health
• Report: Spain Leads Accessible Tourism Growth