Debate-Style Competition Tests Teams’ Industry Knowledge and Sheds Light on Trends Affecting Tourism on Both Sides of the Pond
World Travel Market London 2015, the leading global event for the travel industry, together with international travel & hospitality marketing communications agency MMGY Global will be hosting a lively and insightful competition between European and American tourism leaders who will battle it out for the chance to walk away as winners of the inaugural MMGY Tourism Cup.
The MMGY Tourism Cup competition, inspired by well-known international golf competitions, the Ryder Cup and the Solheim Cup, will match a team of European travel and tourism leaders against their American counterparts in a debate-style forum that will cover topics shaping today’s tourism industry.
The inaugural debate will utilise current research, insights and case studies to test the two teams’ tourism knowledge.
Eduardo Santandar, CEO and Executive Director of the European Travel Commission will captain a group that faces off against a team led by Todd Davidson, U.S. Travel Association National Chair, CEO of Travel Oregon as they compete in four entertaining rounds.
The one-hour session will be moderated by MMGY Global Vice Chairman Peter Yesawich and co-hosted by the sponsoring company Adara, featuring the organization’s Vice President of Resort and Destination Analytics, Ted Sullivan.
Additional team competitors will include Joss Croft, CMO, Visit Britain; Mark Henry, Central Marketing Director, Tourism Ireland; Ida Gutiérrez de Escofet, SVP Corporate Affairs, CSR and Communication, NH Hotel Group; Tam Pigott, Executive Director, The Beaches of Ft. Myers and Sanibel; Barry Goldstein, Chief Digital & Distribution Officer, Wyndham Hotel Group; and Rob Torres Managing Director, Travel, Google.
The friendly competition will also be raising money and awareness for the international water aid organisation, Just a Drop.
WTM London delegates in the audience will be encouraged to vote and share information in an effort to raise the donation from MMGY Global and event sponsor Adara toward the worthy cause.
World Travel Market London, Conference and Seminar Manager, Charlotte Sutton said: “This is an exciting new addition to the WTM London Event Programme for 2015, the first time WTM London has done anything like this.
“It will be great to see how the two teams battle it out in each of the rounds and draw from their collective intelligence, as well as their collective influence in the industry. This competition will benefit not just the delegates in the audience but also raise awareness for Just a Drop, the water aid charity that World Travel Market London fully supports year-round.”
The MMGY Tourism Cup Competition will take place on Tuesday 3 November at WTM London on the WTM Global Stage from 16.15 – 17.15.
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About World Travel Market London
WTM London, the leading global event for the travel industry, is the must-attend four-day business-to-business exhibition for the worldwide travel and tourism industry.
Almost 51,500 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.
WTM London, now in its 36th year, is the event where the travel industry conducts and concludes its deals. WTM 2014 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. www.wtmworld.com
World Travel Market Events
World Travel Market is comprised of the leading leisure travel events in the world; World Travel Market London, WTM Latin America in Sao Paulo, WTM Africa in Cape Town and Arabian Travel Market in Dubai.
New events for 2016 are WTM connect Asia and WTM connect China, which join WTM connect Ski and International Golf Travel Market. These unique one-to-one events are targeted at leisure and niche travel markets, allowing exhibitors to exclusively meet with elite hosted buyers.
The World Travel Market events are attended by the global travel and tourism industry’s senior executives to conduct business deals and discover the latest research, insight and opinion.
In 2014, the World Travel Market events facilitated around $7 billion in industry deals from negotiations between the more than 15,000 buyers, 9,500 exhibitors (1,500 main stand holders and 8,000 stand sharers) in attendance of its four events.
WTM is owned by the world’s leading events organiser Reed Exhibitions.
About Reed Exhibitions
Reed Exhibitions is the world’s leading events organiser, with over 500 events in 43 countries. In 2014 Reed brought together over seven million event participants from around the world generating billions of dollars in business. Today Reed events are held throughout the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Asia Pacific and Africa and organised by 41 fully staffed offices. Reed Exhibitions serves 43 industry sectors with trade and consumer events. It is part of the RELX Group plc, a world-leading provider of information solutions for professional customers across industries.
About MMGY Global
MMGY Global is the world’s largest integrated global marketing firm, specializing the travel, hospitality and entertainment industries. With more than 35 years of experience in the tourism field, the award-winning agency maintains a global communications practice in all marketing channels, serving many of the world’s premier travel and tourism brands. MMGY Global is author of acclaimed industry research (including the Portrait of American Travelers®) that identifies the habits and preferences of travelers – insights that serve as the foundation for its marketing strategy. For more information, visit www.mmgyglobal.com.