Last week I travelled to London to attend the World Travel Market, a leading global event for the travel industry. DMO’s, tour-operators, travel agencies, transport and accommodation providers, travel bloggers and media representatives, gather for one week in London to see the latest trends in the industry and to establish collaborations for the coming year.
The event is held yearly at Excel London and approx. 50,000 senior travel industry professionals are present. It’s a massive event that gathers people from all over the world.
I went to WTM on Wednesday, which is considered to be the busiest day, but arrived in the afternoon so it was not as crowded as I expected. I browsed around the stands in search for the latest innovations and ideas. I felt like travelling around the world in just half a day by tasting food from different continents, speaking to interesting people, listening to traditional music, seeing local crafts and even taking holiday pictures in Kenya (just in a photo booth J). After my tasting session, I attended a talk on ‘Video blogging and the future of travel content creation’ which had a few interesting ideas to follow up in class.
Also on Wednesday, the World Responsible Tourism Awards were held – the most respected and well-known responsible tourism awards which follow the principle that ‘all types of tourism can and should be organised in a way that preserves, respects and benefits destinations and local people’.
http://www.responsibletravel.com/awards/