Major Latin American, Caribbean Presence at London’s WTM

The London World Travel Market (WTM 2005) is marking its 25th anniversary with a bang. The event –scheduled from Nov. 8 to 11 in the British capital- has logged a new record of attendants, many of them from the Caribbean region, at the roomy ExCel Fairgrounds.

Organizers said the world’s largest fair of the travel and tourism industry has this time around provided 39,000 square yards of exhibition space for over 5,000 companies from some 190 countries.

As a matter of fact, there are 70 debuting exhibitors in this year’s WTM, including the Trade and Tourism Development Company of the Arab Emirates, the Abu Dhabi Emirate, Qatar Airways, South Africa’s Cape Info S.A., Knysma Tourism, Africa’s Islands, Mali, Domina Hotels & Resorts from Italy and the Brazilian Hospitality Industry.

“There’s great optimism among exhibitors following three long years riddled with conflicts, the SARS outbreak and economic hardships,” said Fiona Jeffrey, chief of the Exhibition Group.

Mrs. Jeffrey indicated that all European markets grew strong during the first half of the ongoing year. Spain, for instance, took a solid 3.8 jump and France climbed 1.4 percent after enduring a 7 percent slide in 2003. Germany, for its part, notched up in double digits. The U.K. has chalked up 12.5 million visitors in the first six months of 2004, up 13 percent from a year ago.

The Caribbean Tourism Organization has scheduled the European Forum on Marketing for next Tuesday with a much anticipated attendance of Caribbean execs and impresarios.

Ministers, commissioners and tourism directors that have signed up for the forum will get firsthand information on the European market and will discuss such major issues as long-haul travel on the heels of one of the direst periods the world leisure industry has ever gone through.

Tourism has reaped positive outcomes through most of the ongoing year with a blistering 13 percent hike in the first four months, 23 percent in May, 12 percent in June, 10 percent in July and 6 percent in August, a month in which the number of international arrivals ratcheted up to 90 million worldwide.

The WTM notes that fear to travel has once again given way to wanderlust, and even though there’re still a few threats looming in the horizon, they are not causing such a mighty ripple effect on the travel industry as it happened three years ago.

In a region-by-region breakdown, the most spectacular spike was registered in the Asia-Pacific Rim with a stunning 37 percent, followed by North America, whose 12 percent increment stands for the first positive upshot there in the past three years.

The United States has seen a 15 percent increase in the number of foreign tourist arrivals, while its recovery as a traveler-sending market has helped Mexico’s 11 percent jump.

In Central America and South America, the amount of international trekkers that traveled there ramped up 19 and 15 percent, respectively.

The highest marks went to Guatemala (34 percent), Panama (20 percent), Nicaragua (16 percent), Argentina (11 percent), Uruguay (29 percent), Chile (17 percent), and Paraguay (15 percent).

In the case of Europe, international arrivals climbed 6 percent as Mediterranean destinations like Italy, France, Spain and Portugal held on to the same numbers posted last year. The payoff was a stronger euro that eventually sent its traditional European markets out to the Caribbean, Mexico and Brazil.

WTM experts believe positive results in Europe has also made long-haul travel from the U.S. and Japan snap back significantly.

As to Asia, China has turned out to be the strongest tourist-sending market there with 20.2 million trippers journeying abroad, up an astounding 82 percent increase until May. The top beneficiaries of this emerging travel power are Hong Kong and Macao with 58 and 36 percent increments, respectively.