Any indication of a downturn in world tourism is certainly not evident at World Travel Market in London. Booths are as busy as ever and the halls are crowded.
The annual event, celebrating its 40th year, has attracted more than 51000 senior travel professionals including 9000 buyers and 5000 exhibitors. Last year 3.4 billion pounds was generated in industry deals.
Sri Lanka back on the travel map after bombings
The headline destination this year is Sri Lanka – its $4.4 billion tourism industry still reeling from cancellations as travellers shun the sun and sand Indian Ocean island after multiple suicide bombings that killed more than 250 people in April this year. Ensuring security and safety of tourists has been top of the agenda for the government that underlines the fact that new systems and advanced security equipment have been installed at key locations including hotels and airports. As a result, it seems tourist arrivals have been gradually increasing. “We have been waiting for WTM to announce to the world that Sri Lanka is back on the travel map – better and stronger,” said Tourism Minister John Amaratunga. “Tourism is very important to us as nearly two million people depend on the industry,” he added.
Sri Lanka Airways set to relaunch Sydney route
Sri Lanka’s national carrier is poised to relaunch a Sydney route in 2020 and hopes to position the island as an alternative stopover route to Australia. The carrier had hoped to bring the route back this year but these plans were shelved after the Easter bombings.
“Sri Lanka is a good half way point from the UK – 10 hours to Columbo and then 10 to Sydney,” according to CEO Vipula Gunatilleka.
Numbers to the UK from Australia down
While Australia remains one of the top three long-haul inbound tourism markets to the UK along with the US and India, visitor number are down 2.1% from our part of the globe. According to research released at WTM this “is the result on Australia entering its first economic depression in more than 20 years in the last two quarters of 2018.” The Australian dollar was dropping, people had less money and it was becoming more expensive to visit the UK according to the author of the research, Olivier Ponti. In a list of the top 30 long haul countries there have been some significant new entrants. Nigeria is back in the top 10 Bangladesh is up 32.5% and China up 19.8%. The top three long haul cities are New York, Hong Kong and Sydney.
Hot new destinations for “epic” holidays
Armenia, Eritrea (Sovereign state in the Horn of Africa) South Korea, Finland and Kazakhstan are all tipped to be the next hot “epic travel” destinations by 2020 according to travel experts in this rapidly evolving travel niche. Epic Travel is defined as a new segment for high worth individuals with a desire to push the boundaries. They are often influenced by emotion. According to Adam Sebba from Steppes Travel: People are coming to us and saying I saw this on instagram – where is it? I want to go there. It is very much emotion led travel.”
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