Category Archives: Exhibitions

The Korea Mice Expo (KME), the nation’s largest trade show for incentive planners and meeting professionals, will take place on June 14-15, 2018 in Songdo ConvensiA, Incheon. The two-day event will provide a perfect venue for over 2,000 expected attending MICE industry professionals to engage with 300 exhibiting local service providers, including convention bureaus, unique venues, and travel agencies. To foster a business-friendly event, this year’s Korea MICE Expo will be in an unconventional format, ditching the usual sit-down gala dinner and forums. “We want this expo to be bigger and meaningful to all the participants. We will make KME 2018 a platform where buyers and suppliers can truly acquire business potentials,” said Chulbeum Park, Director, Korea Tourism Organization (KTO) Meetings & Incentives Team. A standing networking party will replace the usual sit-down gala dinner to let guests interact freely. Also, convention bureaus will showcase not only their MICE expertise but also their local food specialties during the reception. For the first time, the Korea MICE Expo will have a theme ‘Hallyu meets MICE’ offering participants new venues, activities, and discussions related to popular Korean films, dramas, and music. A main highlight of the event includes the Opening Keynote by Soo-Wook Ahn, Executive Director of SM Entertainment, one of the leading entertainment groups in Korea.  

More than 6000 representatives from 80 countries around the world converged at Durban’s ICC to attend the biggest travel trade show in Africa. “It’s fair to say that good business concluded at this show can translate into measurable economic growth for the entire continent,” says Sisa Ntshona, CEO, South African Tourism. According to the organisers, the online meetings confirmed for the show between buyers and exhibitors had already exceeded the 2017 numbers two weeks before the opening. In total, more than 1060 exhibitors will be doing business from 22 African countries. “Over 1460 buyers from 69 countries are attending the show. Having the right buyers in front of the right products will take African tourism growth to the next level,” says Ntshona.

Durban’s tourism sector has geared up to welcome more than 6,000 delegates to Travel Indaba 2018, Africa’s top travel trade show. The annual event (which the city tendered for and won last year) will be held in Durban for the next five years and each year the benefits are more widely felt. “We are excited as KwaZuluNatal to host Africa’s Travel Indaba for the 27th consecutive year. This tourism showpiece has brought major spin-offs for the tourism industry and associated businesses, big and small, in KwaZulu-Natal. We expect this year’s three-day show to inject to KwaZulu-Natal’s GDP a whopping R89 million,” says Sihle Zikalala, MEC, Economic Development, Tourism and Environmental affairs. “One of the strategic thrusts for Africa’s Travel Indaba going forward was to ensure that the platform drives more local jobs and opportunities and we know that this has been achieved with our committed partners and service providers,” says Sisa Ntshona, CEO, South African Tourism. The theme for this year’s show is about telling African success stories, and a big part of this will be celebrating the centenary of Nelson Mandela’s birth with the tourism delegates from all over the continent and the world. The show will also be used to launch the improved Mandela Journey App which has been especially updated in celebration of the centenary year. The exhibition will be held from May 8-10 at the Durban Inkosi Albert Luthuli Convention Centre.

The 44th Germany Travel Mart (GTM) opened in Dresden, Germany and saw the presence of tour operators and journalists from around the world. After a short welcome of the delegates at the Church of Our Lady of Dresden, the inaugural ceremony took place at the Kulturpalast Dresden. Petra Hedorfer, CEO, German National Tourism Board addressed the delegates and said that Germany is the second most popular destination for Europeans for the 8th year running and recorded 83.9 million international overnight stays. The Indian delegation had 11 agents and 6 media people. The number of overnight stays from India increased by 13.8 per cent to Germany in the last one year.

His Highness Sheikh Maktoum bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Deputy Ruler of Dubai, inaugurated Arabian Travel Market (ATM) 2018, marking the start of the 25th edition of the show. This year’s show, which is taking place at Dubai World Trade Centre from April 22-25, 2018, has more than 400 stand holders. India’s presence at the show includes state tourism boards, hotels, tour operators and technology providers. Showcasing India’s diverse tourism offerings and the growing inbound numbers from the UAE, Navdeep Suri, Ambassador of India to the UAE, highlighted that there are currently 1065 flights a week between both nations connecting 17 Indian cities to the UAE. Suri was accompanied by Manas Pattanaik, Deputy Director General, Ministry of Tourism and Braja Mukherjee, Assistant Director (in-charge), Indiatourism, Dubai, while promoting the country at the show. ATM 2018 has adopted Responsible Tourism – including sustainable travel trends – as its main theme and this will be integrated across all show activities.      

The 10th edition of Great Indian Travel Bazaar (GITB) opened with 280 foreign buyers from 55 countries and 270 exhibitors at The Lalit Jaipur on April 22. Committed to boost tourism in India, the inbound show was inaugurated by Vasundhara Raje, Chief Minister, Rajasthan; Rashmi Verma, Secretary, Ministry of Tourism; Jyotsna Suri, Chairperson, FICCI Tourism Committee; Dipak Deva, Co-Chairman, FICCI Tourism Committee; Nihal Chand Goel, Additional Chief Secretary (Tourism, Art & Culture), among other officials from the Government of Rajasthan. The show, celebrating a decade of successfully promoting inbound tourism in Rajasthan, hopes to cross the 11,000 mark in terms of pre-scheduled B2B meetings between the exhibitors and buyers. Raje said, “It is heartening to see such an enthusiastic participation at GITB. The tourism sector has seen a new vigour and dynamism after the launch of the campaign ‘Jane Kya dikh Jaye’. Our vision was to get 50 million tourists in Rajasthan by 2020 but by the end of 2017 itself, the state received 47.5 million tourists and we would compete our target by the end of 2018.” Raje also thanked the central government for the financial support provided for the state’s various tourism projects. An MoU was also singed on behalf of the Government of Rajasthan and FICCI under which the GITB will continue to be hosted till 2024. The dates for the next edition of the show in Jaipur are April 28-30, 2019.  

The 4th Global Exhibition on Services is set to take place from May 15-18, 2018 at the Bombay Exhibition Centre in Mumbai. A curtain raiser for the event was held in New Delhi at the Shangri-La hotel. Organised by Ministry of External Affairs and Department of Commerce, Ministry of Commerce & Industry, Govt of India, GES is meant to promote the services sector including tourism as well as education. This year, the focus is on Northeast India and ASEAN region as it is themed on ‘The Northeast India-ASEAN Opportunity’.

Manav Thadani, Founder Chairman, Hotelivate, announced on the sidelines of the annual hospitality event, Hotel Investment Conference-South Asia (HICSA) 2018, that the company has recently opened an office in Singapore and simultaneously announced a tie-up with American company called LW Hospitality Advisors (LWHA). It is a team of around 45 people with presence in New York, Atlanta, Seattle and San Diego. He says, “This is our fourth month as Hotelivate and we have opened our first office outside of India in Singapore. Stephane Regnault, Managing Director – Asset Management, Hotelivate, heads this office.  So now officially we have seven partner offices and I can start claiming that we are a global company.” The 14th edition of HICSA was held in Mumbai from April 4-5, 2018.

The Travel Luxury Show, recently concluded in Jaipur, with 1800 successful meetings. Luxury buyers from across India had one-on-one meetings with the sellers. At the inauguration in a high profile group discussion, luxury trends were highlighted that included the growth statistics of this sector and the immense potential that India has to offer. The luxury Indian traveller is evolving and this platform was a perfect example of that. The show was inaugurated by Guldeep Singh Sahni, Former Founder President, OTOAI; Monica Suri, General Manger, Jaipur Marriott Hotel and Manish Kriplani, Chapter Head South, OTOAI. The next edition of the travel luxury show will be held on April 6 and 7, 2019.  

The theme of Maharashtra Tourism’s stall at ITB Berlin this year was ‘Sustainable Tourism’ and ‘Tourism 360-degree’ to offer new avenues of tourism. The delegation was led by Vijay Gautam, IAS, Principal Secretary, Tourism & Culture and Aashutosh Rathod, Joint Managing Director, MTDC who presided over key B2B meetings and spoke about the prospects of ensuing collaborations with counterparts to attract tourists all across the globe. Maharashtra aims to provide a meaningful experience to travellers, creating awareness about sustainability matters and encouraging these practices among them. The response generated by travel and tour operators for MTDC’s initiative at ITB Berlin 2018 was promising.