Arabian Travel Market New Frontiers Recovery Award 2016 recognises Taiwan for its efforts to repair, rebuild and recover after devastating earthquake in February
Arabian Travel Market (ATM), the region’s leading travel industry showcase, has named Taiwan as the recipient of the New Frontiers Recovery Award 2016 at a special presentation that was also broadcast on ARN radio on the final day of the annual event.
“We wanted to recognise Taiwan not only for its swift physical rebuilding, but for the way the country has maintained its optimistic outlook with regards to maintaining and growing its tourism industry, particularly when it comes to targeting travellers from the Middle East region.” said Noblet-Segers
“We are pleased to receive this award,” said Arthur Hsieh, Director, TTB Singapore Branch, Taiwan Visitors Association. “We managed to recover swiftly from the earthquake as our infrastructure is so strong. The rebuilding has now been completed and we want people in the Middle East to know that Taiwan is renowned for its national parks and scenic areas full of flowers, fruit and greenery. You can see the mountains and the beach in one day and travel from north to south in just 90 minutes thanks to the 300kmph bullet train.”
The island nation, which has long been a popular tourism destination, was hit by a 6.4-magnitude earthquake in February 2016 causing the worst death toll in the country’s history since 1999. In the aftermath of the earthquake, Taiwan’s government was swift to react, allocating US$1 billion in aid to address building safety and agricultural land soil concern. Around 2,000 schools have since been retrofitted for quake safety.
Taiwan was shortlisted along with Nepal and the Philippines, which also experienced natural catastrophes that caused significant human and economic losses in the last 12 months. Nepal suffered a 7.8-magnitude earthquake in April 2015 that flattened large parts of the capital Kathmandu and caused devastation across the entire nation. Philippines was hit by a typhoon in October 2015 displacing half a million people and directly affecting over 1.24 million Filipinos.
Now in its 12th year, the New Frontiers Recovery Award was created in 2005 to recognise outstanding contributions to tourism development in the face of overwhelming adversity, supporting the chosen destination by donating exhibition space at the event to the value of US$10,000.
Previous award recipients include Nepal, Phuket, Thailand; Cancun, Mexico; Sichuan, China; Baluchistan, Pakistan; Central Visayas, Philippines; and Northern India.
For more information on The New Frontiers Recovery Award, please go to www.arabiantravelmarket.com
-ENDS-
About Arabian Travel Market
In its 22nd edition, Arabian Travel Market 2015, witnessed a year-on-year visitor attendance increase of 15% to over 26,000, with exhibiting companies increasing by 5% to 2,873. Business deals worth more than US$2.5 billion were signed over the four days.
www.arabiantravelmarket.com
Arabian Travel Market is part of Reed Travel Exhibition’s WTM Portfolio of events, which also includes World Travel Market, World Travel Market Latin America and World Travel Market Africa.
WTM Portfolio
The World Travel Market Portfolio is comprised of the leading leisure travel events in the world; World Travel Market in London, WTM Latin America in Sao Paulo, WTM Africa in Cape Town and Arabian Travel Market in Dubai.
The WTM Portfolio’s 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 WTM Portfolio 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 worldʼs 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.
Media contact:
Nathalie Viselé
Director
Shamal Marketing Communications
PO Box 502701
Office 106, Arjaan Office Tower
Dubai Media City
Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Office: +971 4 3652711 I Mobile : +971 50 4576525
E-mail: nathalie@smc-pr.com I Website: www.smc-pr.com