The fourth day of World Travel Market, the leading global event for the travel industry, attracts senior industry buyers with an annual purchasing responsibility of a massive £1.75 billion.
Furthermore, a significant percentage of buyers ONLY attend World Travel Market on a Thursday – these buyers have an annual purchasing responsibility of almost half a billion pounds (£480,554,809), reveals analysis of the WTM 2013 attendance records.
The Thursday WTM Speed Networking event attracted almost 100 buyers from a range of leading travel companies including JacTravel and Secret Escapes. These buyers negotiated business deals with more than 379 exhibitors.
Overall, WTM 2013 will be responsible or a massive £2.2 billion in industry deals.
Almost 3,700 trade visitors attend on the Thursday, including almost 2,000 trade visitors who ONLY attend on the final day of WTM.
These visitors are from some of the largest and leadings travel companies in the world including; Thomas Cook, TUI, Cosmos Holidays and Kuoni.
While, visitors from cruise lines include Carnival, Hurtigurten and MSC attended the fourth day.
Senior executives from British Airways, Ryanair, Air France/KLM, Emirates, Air China, Qatar Airways, Monarch and BMI Regional represent the airline industry.
The Global Distribution Systems are represented by executives from Travelport, while other major technology companies in attendance included Google.
The world-famous London restaurant Claridge’s was also in attendance.
Major companies from outside the travel and tourism industry were in attendance to sign deals with exhibitors on the Thursday including; American Express, Ticketmaster, Barclays, Deloitte, The Financial Times and Visa Europe.
500 media were in attendance including representatives from; BBC, Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday, Channel 4, National Geographic, Lonely Planet, TTG UK and Travel Weekly UK.
Furthermore, main stand holder personnel also increased by 4%, meaning in total there was more than 6,000 industry participants at WTM 2013 on the Thursday.
The final day of WTM hosted 16 conference session covering topics including social media, responsible tourism and blogging attracting more than 2,500 (2,503) delegates.
Tripadvisor were among the organisations speaking, while London Deputy Mayor Kit Malthouse and no-frills airline pioneer and Go founder Barbara Cassani also spoke.
World Travel Market, Senior Director, Simon Press, said: “The Thursday of World Travel Market offers exhibitors a great opportunity to sign business deals with some of the most senior buyers in the industry.
“A number of buyers only attend on the Thursday of WTM, so exhibitors need to make sure they are maximising the opportunities on offer – including the Thursday Speed Networking Programme .
“With the buyers attending WTM on Thursday having purchasing responsibility for £1.75 billion – and many only attending on the final day – it can only take one conversation to end WTM on a high.”
