The World Travel Market portfolio of events for 2016 have 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.
First up for 2016 was the fourth WTM Latin America, in Sao Paulo, Brazil which took place over 29 – 31 March and was responsible for bringing the world to Latin America and promoting Latin America to the world. The 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 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 & tourism markets, growing at a substantial rate and gaining increased interest globally.
Furthermore, the 23rd Arabian Travel Market, which took place in Dubai between 25 – 28 April experienced a 7% increase on ATM 2015, taking the total amount of trade delegates for ATM 2016 to more than 28,000. The overall Buyers’ Club numbers also increased by 9%, taking the number of members to almost 7,000 and allowed for excellent business opportunities and meetings to take place on the exhibition floor over the four days.
This month also saw the successful launch of WTM connect Asia, which took place in Penang on 18 – 20 May. 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.”
