WTM London opens for business
London : WTM London 2016 began with a busier-than-ever Speed Networking event, attracting a number of first time participants as well as returning buyers looking to repeat the success of previous years.
As the leading global event for the travel industry, WTM London is able to connect buyers with suppliers from some significant travel businesses which are less well known in Europe.
Business is particularly in focus on the opening day of WTM London, with many destinations taking the opportunity to update the market on 2016 and to look ahead. Elena Kountoura, tourism minister for Greece, said this year was in line to become its busiest ever year with more than 27 million international arrivals expected, including cruise.
India is also looking to reposition its tourism offer. Vinod Zutshi, Secretary, Minister for Tourism India, said that his government was prioritising tourism by investing in the public infrastructure in order to facilitate specific tourism investments from the private sector.‘Incredible India’ is the official premier partner of the event.
Brexit remains a common theme across the seminar programme, as the UK and global travel industry awaits the actual terms of the UK withdrawal from the EU.
Elsewhere, the opening day of WTM London 2016 saw the first ever Global Sports Tourism Summit. Winners included Glasgow, London and the USA.
WTM London is the event where the travel and tourism industry conducts its business deals. Buyers from the WTM Buyers’ Club have a combined purchasing responsibility of $22.6 billion (£15.8bn) and sign deals at the event worth $3.6 billion (£2.5bn).
WTM London, the leading global event for the travel industry, is the must-attend three-day business-to-business exhibition for the worldwide travel and tourism industry.
Almost 50,000 senior travel industry professionals, government ministers and international press, embark on ExCeL – London every November to network, negotiate and discover the latest industry opinion and trends at WTM London.
WTM London is the event where the travel industry conducts and concludes its deals. WTM London will generate around £2.5 billion of travel industry contracts.
WTM London is part of Reed Travel Exhibition’s World Travel Market events, which also includes Arabian Travel Market, World Travel Market Latin America and World Travel Market Africa. – WTM
Nov. 7 2016
