World Travel Market 2013, the leading global event for the travel industry, will generate £161 million in travel and tourism industry deals for African exhibitors, including North Africa.
The impressive figure has come from independent research of World Travel Market’s Africa and North Africa exhibitors and shows the value of deals, either through contracts signed at WTM 2013 or from negotiations with WTM Buyers’ Club members, which will lead to deals signed before WTM 2014.
Overall, World Travel Market 2013, the leading global event for the travel industry, will generate a record £2.2 billion in travel and tourism industry deals – an impressive 19% increase on WTM 2012.
Much of the boost to business was thanks to the speed networking sessions, which saw a record number of both exhibitors (760) and WTM Buyers’ Club members (211) on the Monday, while the Thursday session attracted 370 exhibitors and almost 90 members from the WTM Buyers’ Club.
There were 17 new African exhibitors at WTM 2013, including Board of Tourism for Sao Tome and Principe, Ghana Tourist Authority and Cape Verde. The Africa and North African region of the exhibition covers the whole continent from Egypt, Morocco in the North of Africa down to Mozambique and South Africa.
More than 50 companies joined the Egypt stand including top hotel chains such as Four Seasons, Marriott, InterContinental Hotels, Hyatt and Starwood.
The participation of global hotel brands reflects the fact that Africa is a key market, as tourism grows along with rising numbers of domestic and regional business travellers moving between Lagos, Nairobi, Johannesburg, Luanda and other African commercial capitals.
The WTM Global Trends Report 2013, in association with Euromonitor International, forecast that the continent would see growth in visitor numbers and travel revenues in 2014, thanks to its buoyant economic growth, rising incomes, growth in business travel and an expanding middle class.
The report also identified a rise in multigenerational holidays, and an increasing focus on family-friendly safaris.
Meanwhile, Africa’s source markets are changing and moving away from the traditional Europe and US focus, with visitors from the BRICs and the Middle East becoming more important.
World Travel Market, Senior Director, Simon Press, said: “I am very pleased to report our Africa exhibitors have generated such a wealth of business at WTM 2013, and it bodes well for WTM 2014.
“As an organisation, we are working hard to facilitate further growth in the Africa market, with the launch of Reed Travel Exhibition’s Africa Travel Week – which includes the inaugural WTM Africa.”
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About World Travel Market
World Travel Market, 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.
More than 50,000 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, now in its 35th year, is the event where the travel industry conducts and concludes its deals.
WTM 2013 generated more than £2 billion of travel industry contracts, revealed independent research by Fusion Communications.
WTM is owned by the world’s leading events organiser Reed Exhibitions (RE), which organises a other portfolio’s of travel industry events including IBTM Events, the world’s leading showcases for the meetings and events industry and International Luxury Travel Market events.
In 2013, RE held more than 500 events in 40 countries bringing together more than six million people from around the world generating billions of dollars in business.
Reed Exhibitions
Reed Travel Exhibitions (RTE) is the world’s leading provider of exhibitions in the travel and tourism industry, with a wide-ranging portfolio of 21 international events in 14 countries throughout the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Asia Pacific and Africa.
Its market-leading, business-to-business events cover all elements of travel and tourism, including leisure travel, luxury travel, meetings, events, incentives and business travel, as well as golf, ski and spa travel.
RTE is part of Reed Exhibitions.