World Travel Market 2010
Credit: World Travel Market
Fiona Jeffery.
Billed as the main event for the global travel industry – the four-day World Travel Market (WTM) brought international private and public sector travel industry players to ExCel – London November 8 to 11 to discuss travel trends, network, and do business. For travel agents, the event offers exposure to worldwide suppliers of travel. WTM participants include buyers and sellers from a wide array of destinations and industry sectors like travel agencies, airlines, hotels, tour operators, cruise lines, tourist attraction and entertainment providers, trade associations and tourism boards.
In opening WTM 2010, Chairman Fiona Jeffery praised the industry for maintaining professionalism and standing firm despite many challenges and stressed that “the global travel and tourism industry has much to be encouraged by going forward”. She noted that while there are still many challenges to overcome, there are also predictions that consumers, especially Europeans, will continue to spend on travel. Chairman Jeffery also pointed to opportunities in sports tourism and sought support from governments in coming to grips with increasing industry legislation.
The WTM 2010 program covered industry trends such as sports tourism, adventure travel and Gay/Lesbian travel and provided a forum for different sectors such as hotels, cruise lines, airline and travel agents to participate in seminars, debates and to hear presentations. Two other events of note were the WTM Ministerial Program and the WTM World Responsible Tourism Day.
A half-day summit of ministers/secretaries of tourism and heads of national tourism administrations was hosted by WTM and World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) on November 9. The summit addressed global tourism issues.
On November 10, WTM held its annual World Responsible Tourism Day to foster development of programs “that create better places for people to live in, and better places to visit”. Sustainable tourism development, meeting the challenges of climate change and the impact of green certification were just a few of the areas for discussion. To recognize supplier, individual, and destinations’ contributions to responsible tourism, Virgin Holidays hosted the annual Responsible Tourism Awards.
New at WTM 2010
The launch of the new Sports Pavilion gave stadiums around the world a fitting place to promote their historic venues, tours and museums to the global travel trade.
In recognition of the hard work of UK travel agents in the face of economic and other challenges, the new WTM Pride of Travel Agents Awards was launched.
For buyers and managers in the hotel industry, a new Hotel Program addressed topics including hotel promotions and booking, investment and finance, and security and risk management.
At the WTM Business Day featuring Lord Digby Jones, the industry’s most revered business speaker, travel businesses were offered advice clinics and workshops to help with the current economic environment.
At the WTM Technology & Online Travel Theatre, technology experts described new developments that could assist companies in the future.
– Merle Rosenstein
