The inaugural World Travel Market Latin America, the leading global event for the Latin American travel industry, attracted almost 17,000 visits from senior industry professionals looking to conduct business negotiations over the three days of the event.
The first day – Tuesday 23 April – of WTM Latin America and the 39th BRAZTOA Business Meeting saw more than 6,000 senior industry professionals, with an almost equal split between visitors and exhibitors attend the Transamerica Expo Center to sign business deals, according to unaudited figures.
The visitor figure included more 150 hosted international buyers.
That evening’s Welcome Party was extremely well attended with party-goers treated to a feast of Samba, one of the famous Brazilian rhythms and dances.
The Wednesday 24 April saw an increase in visitors looking to negotiate business deals with exhibitors, with almost 3,100 in attendance. Furthermore, almost 3,000 exhibitors attended the second day taking the total number of participants to again more than 6,000. All of the hosted international buyers attend the WTM Latin America Speed Networking session hosting business meetings with more 300 exhibiting companies.
More business deals were discussed at the MICE cocktail reception at the end of the second day in the VIP Lounge.
The final day of WTM Latin America – Thursday 25 April – began with a Corporate market segment lunch in the VIP Lounge and saw 4,500 senior delegates walking the exhibition floor looking to negotiate deals and sign business contracts, made up of more than 2,000 visitors and nearly 2,500 exhibitors.
Reed Travel Exhibitions, Director, WTM Latin America Lawrence Reinisch said: “WTM Latin America surpassed expectations with many exhibitors signing a high number of business deals. This success has seen many exhibitors ask about increasing their participation for 2014 and furthermore many international visitors enquiring about taking stand space as they look to increase their exposure in the growing markets in Latin America.
“WTM Latin America further enhanced Reed Travel Exhibition’s reputation for delivering highly professional events, which help its exhibitors grow their businesses by developing a myriad of new commercial opportunities.”
In addition to this, the 39th BRAZTOA (the Brazilian Association of Tourism Operators) Commercial Encounter included the participation of 73 Brazilian tourism operators who are associated with the organisation – who account for 90% of the total leisure tourism market in Brazil. These companies presented their main products and new items in a space of two thousand square meters.
By means of aerial convoys (22 routes) and highway convoys (nine routes), BRAZTOA guaranteed the presence of 850 travel agents from all over the country, who took part in activities at the trade fair. These activities included training sessions, forums and a round-table about BRAZTOA’s Sustainability Program. The organisation also brought together 80 senior Leisure-segment Brazilian Buyers and 130 international exhibitors for the BRAZTOA Business Meeting assuring that BRAZTOA-associated tour operator buyers – again representing 90% of Leisure market in Brazil – had access to new destinations that were actively promoted in Latin America for the first time.
Another key event was the launching of the BRAZTOA 2013 Yearbook, with unprecedented information about the Brazilian Leisure market.
“The alliance with WTM Latin America opened up new frontiers for BRAZTOA’s associates, who had the chance to increase business, learn about new products and maintain the important relationship with travel agents. This new model will allow us to achieve even better results for our associates, suppliers and travel agents. We’re keen to make continuous progress within this partnership model taking advantage of best practices and carrying out whatever adjustments are necessary in order to ensure that the following editions are always better”, explains Marco Ferraz, BRAZTOA’s chairman.
WTM Latin America is the only travel trade exhibition in Brazil, and one of the only in the continent, to be ABC audited. The ABC audited figures will be available in July.
