Record
turnout at Arabian Travel Market provides a futher boost to the number of
overall visitors attending the World Travel Market portfolio of events so far 2016;
trade attendees up 35% on 2015
The World Travel
Market portfolio of events for 2016 has
received a phenomenal 35% increase in travel trade visitors – totalling an
impressive 37,651 – attending the array of
leading events around the globe, compared to 2015.
One
of the latest events in the calendar, Arabian Travel Market 2016, took
place from 25-28 April at Dubai World Trade Centre, and attracted more than 28,000
trade visitors to the show representing a 7% year-on-year rise and marking a
record turnout for the event. Leading with a topical mid-market theme, the 23rd
travel and tourism industry showcase, which has grown to become the largest event
of its kind in the region, also recorded a 9% increase in the number of Buyers’ Club members compared to the previous year. This
allowed for excellent business opportunities and meetings to take place
on the exhibition floor over the four days. As such, ATM 2016 is poised to
top last year’s record US$2.5 billion in business deals facilitated.
The
news builds on results from the fourth WTM Latin America, which took place from
29 – 31 March in São Paulo, Brazil, and was responsible for bringing the world to Latin
America. Its 5,900 travel trade attendees, which was a 5.4% increase on 2015
and a 26% increase on 2014, made the exhibition the busiest and liveliest yet
and firmly cemented its market-leading position and need for tourism despite
economic uncertainty in Brazil.
The
third WTM Africa – which took place in Cape Town, South Africa as part of Reed
Travel Exhibition’s Africa Travel Week between 6 – 8 April – recorded an
outstanding 23% increase in travel industry attendees, taking the number of
visitors to 3,322, by far the largest growth area. WTM Africa continues to be
the leading exhibition for the inbound and outbound African travel and tourism
markets, growing at a substantial rate and gaining increased interest
globally.
More
recently, May saw the successful launch of WTM connect Asia, which took place
in Penang on 18 – 20 of the month. This pod-format event brought together
hosted buyers and suppliers from more than 30 countries including China,
Malaysia, Mexico, USA, UK, Philippines, Germany, Indonesia and Thailand.The new
pod-format provided quality meetings and an exclusive one-to-one ratio
community offering excellent business opportunities.
WTM events
collectively facilitated more than $7 billion (£4 billion) in travel and
tourism industry deals in 2015 and it is anticipated that even more business
deals will take place in 2016 as a result of the increase in travel trade
visitors which includes those with direct
purchasing responsibility who make up our WTM Buyers’ Club.
The World Travel
Market events consist of the four leading business-to-business travel trade
events in the world;
- WTM Latin America
- WTM Africa
- Arabian Travel Market, and
- WTM London
Along with niche
events;
- WTM connect Asia, and
- International Golf Travel Market
The flagship event,
WTM London is the next event in the calendar, this year moving from a four-day
event to a three-day event, taking place at ExCeL London between Monday 7 –
Wednesday 9 November. This is closely followed by International Golf Travel
Market, which this year is taking place in Son
Termens, Mallorca from 14 – 17 November.
World Travel Market,
Director, Craig Moyes, said: “The World Travel Market events that have already
taken place in 2016 have been a great success. Feedback from all participant
groups across all events has been universally positive. This massive increase
in travel trade visitors across the World Travel Market events so far means we
are on track to facilitate even more business than in 2015 when $7 billion
worth of contracts were signed due to negotiations at our events.”
