Taking place during the first week of December once again in Cannes, ILTM 2018 was the biggest ILTM event ever with 1880 exhibitors from 101 countries, an 8.5% increase year on year. The event carried the theme of “Health and Wellness” with ILTM Director Alison Gilmore commenting:
“In the future, all travel is wellness travel and every trip will be expected to enhance the physical, mental and social wellbeing of the traveller. Transformation is the very promise of travel, and today’s travel brands are the solution to one of the biggest problems of our age. At ILTM 2018, we joined together to celebrate a future travel economy based on a lifelong, personal and emotional quest for longevity, where travel is the short cut to the end goal of wellness.”
1816 buyers from 80 countries were also hosted at ILTM 2018, a 12% increase from 2017 with 752 (41%) new faces at the ILTM Cannes. Notably, there was an increase of 12% of appointment making buyers, each of whom met with the exhibitors in pre-arranged, mutually-matched appointments throughout the 3-day event.
In addition, over 200 accredited luxury and luxury travel editors and influencers also attended ensuring over 5,000 attendees at the show – 650 of whom were first-time attendees.
Responding to exhibitor feedback from last year, the number of buyers from specific source markets increased by 20% from the UK, 12% from Switzerland, 10% from North America, 19% from Latin America and 30% from Italy.
Ms Gilmore concluded:
“ILTM once again proved to be not only the essential business meeting place for movers and shakers in luxury travel but a true platform to highlight the trends facing the luxury travel market in 2019 and beyond. Our journey continues throughout 2019 with 7 dedicated ILTM events in Africa, Arabia, Latin America, Asia Pacific, North America and China, culminating in next year’s flagship ILTM event in Cannes, taking place from 2 – 5 December.”
