Another Record-Breaking World Travel Market

World Travel Market 2005 was the largest ever. This year saw its fourth consecutive increase in exhibitor space of more than 4 percent increase.

A total of 5,194 national tourist offices, industry organizations, tour operators, hotels, cruise lines, airlines, other transport operators and technology companies from 202 representative countries and regions attended. This included 126 new exhibitors.

“We estimate that business worth more than £33 billion of were conducted between visitors and exhibitors and exhibitors with other exhibitors”, said Fiona Jeffery, Groups Exhibition Director.

The amount of business activity this week was also reflected in the continuing growth of the global industry. According to the WTO, an estimated 460 million international tourist arrivals were recorded worldwide in the first seven months of 2005.

This represents an increase of some 25 million arrivals compared with the respective period of 2004, or 5.9 percent growth.

Mrs. Jeffery said she was particularly delighted to welcome back a number of exhibitors to World Travel Market after an absence. This included, for example, Hong Kong Tourism Board, Colorado, Massachusetts and a large number of the Canadian provinces, territories and tourism partners, who were present in London to underpin Canada´s new brand launch on the opening day.

The event, which last year attracted nearly 45,000 participants, including nearly 13,000 international buyers, had a number of new initiatives, including the Travel Technology area.