World Travel Market is back, live and in person!
The 42nd annual conference was held last week for the first time since November 2019 in the spacious ExCeL London conference center.
I was pleased to see a few upgrades. The show design was much friendlier and easier for attendees to navigate. There were many more restaurant choices for foodies and more open meeting spaces for those not exhibiting.
The three-day program was jam-packed with expert speakers, world-class exhibitors, and amazing networking opportunities with over 2,000 destination and travel companies exhibiting.
A few of the big sponsors of WTM this year were Greece, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Philippines, and Sabre. Destinations like Saudi Arabia held numerous shows throughout the day to entertain the visitors - I love the excitement generated by these shows, although sometimes the noise of banging drums can make it difficult to conduct a business meeting!
Most speaker presentations at the show this year focused on sustainability, technology, and the future of travel.
The last WTM was held before COVID devastated the tourism industry. What was quite evident from walking around the tradeshow floor is that the devastation has ended. This indeed is a strong, passionate, resilient industry - travel is back and even stronger than ever!
There were over 30,000 attendees here at the show, with not a face mask in sight - just the beautiful sight of thousands of face-to-face meetings resulting in business deals that will drive our industry to even further heights in 2023.
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