Affordable Car Hire estimates deals worth £4.5 million were agreed or put in motion at World Travel Market 2014, the leading global event for the travel industry.

The independent car hire firm celebrated its 10th birthday at WTM in London’s ExCeL last November and sealed a raft of new deals and completed “all our contracting for 2015”.

Furthermore, Affordable Car Hire staff also met Aviareps – the general sales agency and representation services firm – at WTM and is now negotiating a representation deal.

Angela Day, Chief Executive of Affordable Car Hire, said WTM is a key, must-attend event which allows the firm to meet all its business partners from across the UK and the world.

“Our commercial team is very active with supplier meetings – we have a team of five who have meetings on our stand in the Global Village,” she said.

“We did all of our contracting for 2015. Also, our UK sales team works there with travel agents and affiliates, seeing existing clients and potential new ones.

“And for our global team, WTM is key: we meet any firm which wants to be a global sales partner at WTM.

“People can see our stand – it’s a very slick stand – and at WTM 2014 we met partners from places such as Dubai, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Toronto and Russia.”

Day said WTM is the main event at which it has to exhibit, because it attracts all the key contacts from around the globe.

“We have 15 to 20 staff there, over the four days, having meetings, and going to events and seminars,” she said.

“We make all four days busy for us. Our last meeting was at 3.15pm on the fourth day.
“We also have a separate team of ‘scouts’ who find business for Affordable Car Hire such as new car rental partners.”

As part of its tenth birthday celebrations, Affordable Car Hire held an invitation-only cocktail party at its stand on the third day (Wednesday).

“We had red cocktails and tried to make it fun – the stand pulls lots of people in,” she commented.
She and her team start planning for each WTM as early as June, deciding on events, meetings and targets for their attendance.

“We look forward to it each year. I go to other trade shows but they don’t have the buzz of WTM,” concluded Day.

World Travel Market, Senior Director, Simon Press, said: “I am delighted Affordable Car Hire had a hugely successful WTM 2014. Angela’s examples of business deals negotiated and signed is indicative of the wider response of exhibitors at the event. WTM 2014 will facilitate around £2.5 billion in travel industry business firmly cementing World Travel Market as the event where the travel industry conducts its business.”

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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.
Almost 52,000 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 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.
World Travel Market is part of Reed Travel Exhibition’s WTM portfolio, which also includes Arabian Travel Market, World Travel Market Latin America and World Travel Market Africa. www.wtmworld.com

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.