World Travel Market Africa has received phenomenal initial interest from the global travel industry’s leading buyers with the introduction of Reed Travel Exhibitions’ world-renowned Hosted Buyer programme.
Registration for WTM Africa’s Hosted Buyer programme opened last week and has already received some 200 applications from 35 different countries for its 300 places at the inaugural event, which takes place at the Cape Town International Convention Centre on May 2-3 as part of the newly-formed Thebe Reed Exhibitions’ Africa Travel Week.
A targeted recruitment campaign to attract the 300 key international and pan-African hosted buyers is well underway. With WTM Africa’s dedicated Hosted Buyer Manager making use of Reed Travel Exhibitions’ extensive buyer contacts and forging key partnerships from both established and emerging markets, the WTM Africa team is confident they can ensure they maintain Reed’s excellent track record in attracting top-quality buyers. Through their extensive qualification process, WTM Africa is well on the way to delivering the most relevant buyers for the exhibiting companies.
The opening of registration for the Hosted Buyer programme has received positive feedback, with global buyers very excited at the prospect of a leading new and fresh B2B event for the African travel industry.
“For many years we have supported Reed Exhibitions and are disciples of the value-for-the-investment derived through the qualification process Reed Exhibitions puts into each event and the seller contingent drawn in. With African and Indian Ocean destinations looming larger with our client base WTM Africa is the one event we will support delivering new customers and new business to those WTM exhibitors,” said buyer Allan Falck, Executive Director, Sundance Tours, Argentina.
Klas Wallin of Escape Safaris in Sweden also added, “WTM Africa is great for us as it gathers the whole African market under one umbrella. We are looking forward to meeting our existing suppliers for updates and investigating new opportunities.”
WTM Africa Hosted Buyer Manager Paulina Lund recommends interested buyers to submit their applications. “I am delighted with the interest from the world’s leading buyers to be part of WTM Africa’s Hosted Buyer programme. However, I would still urge those buyers who have not applied to do so, as only the most relevant buyers will be the ones that are ultimately chosen to take part in the programme,” said Lund.
WTM Africa Event Manager Polly Magraw added,“WTM Africa exhibitors will be impressed with the quality of buyers that have already applied for the programme.”
If you are interested in being considered for the WTM Africa Hosted Buyer programme, please submit your application at www.wtmafrica.com/Hosted
Suppliers wishing to present their products and take part in the pre-arranged Hosted Buyer appointments should contact the WTM Africa team to secure their participation at www.wtmafrica.com/Exhibit
Africa Travel Week events are:
- ILTM Africa 28 – 30 April 2014
- IBTM Africa 28 – 30 April 2014
- WTM Africa: 02 – 03 May 2014
For further information about each of the Africa Travel Week events, please visit www.africatravelweek.com
About World Travel Market
World Travel Market, the leading global event for the travel industry, is the must-attend four-day business-to-business exhibition for the worldwide travel and tourism industry. Almost 48,000 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, now in its 34th year, is the event where the travel industry conducts and concludes its deals. WTM 2012 generated £1,860 million of travel industry contracts, revealed independent research by Fusion Communications. WTM is owned by the worldʼs leading events organiser Reed Exhibitions (RE), which organises a portfolio of other travel industry events including Arabian Travel Market and International Luxury Travel Market.In 2012, RE held more than 460 events in 36 countries bringing together more than seven million people from around the world generating billions of dollars in business.
About Africa Travel Week
Africa Travel Week will comprise three co-located shows – WTM Africa, IBTM Africa and ILTM Africa – encompassing Africa’s inbound and outbound markets for general leisure travel, luxury tourism, and the MICE/business travel sector under RTE’s established portfolios of WTM (World Travel Market), ILTM (International Luxury Travel Market) and IBTM (Incentives, Business Travel & Meetings).
Following the successful launch of ILTM Africa earlier this year, the decision to create an all-encompassing travel week will ensure Africa Travel Week is the leading global event for Africa’s travel industry.
About Reed Travel Exhibitions
Reed Exhibitions is the world’s leading events organizer, with over 500 events in 39 countries. In 2011 Reed brought together six million active 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 organized by 33 fully staffed offices. Reed Exhibitions serves 44 industry sectors with trade and consumer events and is part of the Reed Elsevier Group plc, a world-leading publisher and information provider and a FTSE 100 company. www.reedexpo.com
