Newgate Travel recently attended the World Travel Market the global event for the travel industry, held at the Excel Centre. Although it felt like it was miles from anywhere, once on the DLR with all the other visitors and you got a sense of excitment with fellow travellers looking forward to the event. They would not have been disappointed! WTM had put together a compelling programme of conferences, seminars and events for WTM 2012.
On the two days we visited, Tuesday and Wednesday, the place was buzzing with conversation and a hive of activity. All the stands were full of people deep in conversation. The seminars were full to capacity with some, such as National Graphic presentation, standing room only! Surprisingly the presentation on Travel Marketing is Dead - drew an enormous crowd to the Technology Presentation Suite with over 100 plus people crammed into the space, although the presenter lost a fair few of us as the presentation progressed with some of the jargon he used, still we can all say we heard it first at the World Travel Market!
There was a presence from every corner of the globe and more at World Travel market, whatever your association with travel, whether as a supplier, buyer, exhibitor, travel agent or travel operator, with stands on travel holidays, travel destinations, new and old concepts, literally everything that you would associate with travel was there for you to find at the WTM. Bus tours, coach tours, day tours you name it, it was exhibiting.
And if the above exhibition didn't confirm that the travel market is far from dead and is clearly showing no sign of a recession yet, far from it. According to the Daily Mail the past 12 months confirmed the market is very much alive and thriving!
At the Daily Mail's UK inbound stand specially commissioned wrap round copies of the Daily Mail were given away with some interesting statistics on holidays. In particular its readers spent more on hoildays both in the UK and Overseas than any other news brand in the past 12 months. Some £7.6 billion was spent on holidays or short breaks with 1 in every 5 pounds spent by a Mail reader. Over 6.7 million trips abroad were taken in the last 12 months by Mail readers - representing 18% of all overseas visits and last but not least, over 10 million British holidays or short breaks representing 17% of all UK holidays taken by Mail readers.
For those of us in the travel industry the signs are all there that the market is showing no signs of decline, we just have to make sure we reach our target market and deliver goods and services required!
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