Lanka fields largest ever team for WTM in London

Sri Lanka will field the largest ever team for the 33rd annual World Tourism Market (WTM) exhibition which would commences today at ExCEL exhibition centre London . This include top decision makers in the local hospitality sector along with Deputy Minister of Economic Development, Lakshman Yapa Abeywardane, Chairman, Sri Lanka Tourism, Baswara Gunaratne and Chairman SriLankan Airlines, Nishantha Wickremasinghe.

The British market has shown tremendous growth and the promotions at the WTM would further consolidate this segment .One of the biggest advantages the UK market has is their strong Sterling power which gives them better spending power over other countries. 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.

World Travel Market, the leading global event for the travel industry, and this year over 150 new companies from across the world would be showcasing their products. Europe leads the way in new exhibitors with a massive 41 exhibitors while Asia offers a total of 13 first-time exhibitors.

A further 10 new exhibitors will attend the show in the Africa region highlighting the continued development of African tourism, especially as the continent emerges from last year's Arab Spring.

Organsers of the event, Reed Travel Exhibitions Director World Travel Market Simon Press said that the number of new exhibitors at this year's event demonstrates the importance of WTM for generating business for exhibitors. WTM 2011 generated a massive £1,653 million of travel industry contracts with even more business expected to be conducted in at WTM 2012. WTM 2011 will generate £1,653 million of travel industry contracts. Reed exhibitors 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 in 2010.