Arabian Travel Market (ATM) 2013 kicked off in Dubai today. Over the next four days the travel mart will showcase over 2,500 exhibitors from 87 countries with exhibition floor space sold out at over 22,000 square metres.
This year ATM, will focus on the travel industry’s past, present and future. Celebrating two decades of the Middle East’s pre-eminent tourism and hospitality platform, the visitor numbers are also set to break records this year, with Reed Travel Exhibitions, the organiser of the ATM, looking to build on the 2012 figure of 17,000 registered visitors. “We have come a very long way and this is a far cry from the 7,000 tourism professionals who visited for the very first time in the early 1990s and a glowing testimony to all of our stakeholders,” Mark Walsh, Portfolio Director, Reed Travel Exhibitions, said at the Press conference.
“It is a pleasure to witness such an august gathering. During ATM every year, the travel industry arrives in Dubai to take a look into the future of travel and tourism. As Dubai has grown, the show has grown with it and has become one of the most important events on the global industry calendar. For those first time exhibitors and visitors, I can assure you that present day Dubai is a city beyond imagination,” said Helal Saeed Almarri, Director-General, Dubai’s Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing and Chief Executive Officer, Dubai World Trade Centre.
On day two, running concurrently with the travel mart, will be the second annual UNWTO & ATM Ministerial Forum. With the theme of setting a common growth agenda for tourism and aviation, the forum will look at how tourism policies and aviation can work together more closely in order to support sustained economic growth and sector development.
ATM runs until 9 May 2013 at the Dubai International Convention and Exhibition Centre.
