World Travel Market is the biggest event on the calendar in the world of travel. Held at ExCel in London, the event attracts tens of thousands of attendees from around the globe. This year was as well attended and busy as ever, which is a positive sign for the industry in the years ahead. World Travel Market report that 43,727 people attended across three days, an increase of 22% on 2022.
Image: WTM2023 was held in the huge ExCel Exhibtion Centre in London
Destinations, tour operators, DMCs, service providers and more from the UK were in the North Hall along with the rest of Europe and the Technology in Travel section. The UKinbound stand has a prime position by the N9 entrance door and dominates the UK section. It is clearly one of the most popular and busiest stands in the whole event.
Many other destinations were present on the UKinbound stand, including Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds, York, Greenwich and Kent along with Visit Britain. Bath & Bristol were also next to a number of exhibitors under the Visit Wales banner, giving a nice geographical journey along the pods.
Image: Kathryn Davis meets with Minister of State for Media, Tourism and Creative Industries, Sir John Whittingdale OBE MP (middle), the CEO of Visit Britain, Patricia Yates (right) and CEO of UKinbound, Joss Croft (left) at WTM 2023.
Over 76 meetings were pre-arranged with the team across the three days, with many more taking place with people coming to our stand unannounced. Many of our Visit West members also popped by and it was great to see them.
The stand presence was managed by Jon Chamberlain (Head of Marketing) who leads on travel trade engagement for Visit West, but various members of the team were also present at different times to have meetings and answer enquiries. Kathryn Davis (Managing Director) had a busy meetings diary and also met with the current Tourism Minister, Sir John Whittingdale OBE MP. Susie Bowers (Media Liaison Manager) and Emma Frayling (PR & Communications Manager) had packed diaries of meetings and conversations with visiting media and influencers on Monday.
Themes throughout the week that came up in conversation were outlook for 2024 and 2025, availability of accommodation, success stories of 2023 and plans for positive engagement and activity ahead. Some key take-aways were that the German market is booking 2025 right now, North American market is expected to show double-digit percentage growth again and that DMCs and Tour Operators need guaranteed FIT rates - and those accommodation businesses who offer them will benefit greatly from bookings.
The idea of 'The England you already know....but better' was again well-received and we were delighted to see that filtering through into tour programmes with two different operators taking the theory behind the concept – one with a four-night stay in Bristol as part of a wider England tour and another starting a two-night stay in Bath covering much of the same ground as the ever-popular day trips from London but done in a slower, better and more engaging way. We were also delighted to hear from contacts at Get Your Guide who are very positive about our collaboration to showcase the breadth of offer across the Bath and Bristol area to encourage overnight stays – find out more about that here:
Over the next few days and weeks we will be following up with all those who we met but if you would like to talk to the team in the meantime, please don't hesitate to contact us via email.
Our CEO @patriciayatesVB speaking from @WTM_London yesterday during a buzzing day of business selling #Britain as THE destination to visit. Inbound #tourism is worth £30 billion annually to the British economy @GREATBritain @UKinbound pic.twitter.com/S6vCcNjmSe
— VisitBritain Biz (@VisitBritainBiz) November 7, 2023
Related
Comments
Nobody has commented on this post yet, why not send us your thoughts and be the first?
