World Travel Market London, the leading global event for the travel industry boosts the London economy by more than £244 million.

WTM London 2014 – which ran from Monday 3 to Thursday 6 November at ExCeL, London exhibition centre – attracted a record 51,500 participants from the global travel and tourism industry’s most senior executives, who all came to London to profile the hottest travel destinations.

Business deals worth more than £2.5 billion were triggered by the event, while £244,340,223 has been pumped into the economy through money spent on hotels, restaurants, flights and other discretionary spend by those visiting England’s capital city.

To put this figure in context, The British Fashion Council’s London Fashion Week estimated it generates £100 million for the London economy*. While Cardiff’s hosting of seven games at the Rugby World Cup will generate £316 million. In fact, out of the 11 host cities of the 2015 Rugby World Cup only Cardiff and London (£1,203m from 13 games at Wembley, the Olympic Stadium and Twickenham) will generate more than WTM does for the London economy.

An October 2014 Deloitte report in to London’s hosting of two NFL games in 2013 revealed it was worth £32 million to the local economy. While a London NFL team playing eight games a season would benefit London to the tune of £102million, according to the report.

World Travel Market showcases around 186 countries and regions through its almost 5,000 exhibitors. The deals agreed at WTM will be the product content in travel companies’ brochures and on their websites, which will ultimately decide where holidaymakers visit in 2015 and beyond.

World Travel Market, Senior Director, Simon Press said: “World Travel Market plays a vital role for both the global travel and tourism industry facilitating more than £2.5 billion in industry deals. Furthermore, the event has a massive impact on the London economy with 51,500 senior executives staying in London and spending money on hotels and evening entertainment, totalling more than £244 million.

“WTM economic impact on the London economy is more than double the world renowned London Fashion Week’s and is greater than if London was to have its own NFL team.”

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Notes to Editors: *The British Fashion Council’s London Fashion Week’s figure is from 2012.

Findings come from independent research by Fusion Insight & Strategy
14,720 exhibitor personnel spend an average of x £6,907 during their stay in London for WTM = £101,671,040
35,393 visitors spend an average of £4,031 during their stay in London for WTM= £142,669,183
£101,671,040 + £142,669,183 = £244,340,223

About WTM London

WTM London, the leading global event for the travel industry, is the must-attend four-day business-to-businessexhibition 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.