What's new in ILTM Cannes this year? There has been a 5 per cent increase year on year of accredited luxury travel buyers from the Mena region and, in particular, from Lebanon, which is jumping from 5 to 9 accredited luxury buyers this year.

Al Ula, the city in north-western Saudi Arabia, will be one of the new first-time exhibitors from the region.

This 18th edition will be the biggest show in the history of ILTM Cannes, as it prepares for its largest edition ever, welcoming more buyers, more exhibitors and more VIP media from across the world than ever before.

Event management accredits the growth to a steady incline of interest from many exhibiting countries. “In addition to this, we are welcoming the Maldives and Malta as new exhibitors and we have a significant increase in footprint from the Italian tourist board,” a spokesperson from ILTM tells TTN.

ILTM will host 1,850 buyers from across the world – including concierge companies, travel agents and private travel designers – and 30 per cent will be new to the event.

With increasing numbers of travellers looking to balance personal fulfilment with experiences that benefit others as well as themselves, ILTM will also reveal plans to ensure a theme of ‘conscious luxury’ for ILTM events in 2020.

Global tourism destinations – including Dubai, Italy, Greece, Japan, the Maldives and Morocco – as well as private yachts, private jets, private villas and private islands will also take part, not to mention established luxury hotel brands, almost without exception.

The ILTM Global Forum takes place on the eve of the show – December 2 –and will mark the launch of ILTM’s Year of Conscious Luxury. 

Alison Gilmore, ILTM portfolio director comments: “Today, a powerful and influential group of ultra HNW and HNW consumers are preferring to view travel as a gateway to experiences including philanthropy, conservation, wellness, cultural and intellectual pursuits, sport and more. With travel as the means but not an end in itself, travel categories are converging, and travel brands find themselves at the centre of a vast new, eco-system. So, how do we respond? What do we need to know to navigate through this transformation?”

Attendees will hear from a range of experts that go beyond the traditional ideas and explore new and exciting possibilities from a world-renowned economist, to the CEO of one of the world’s largest marketing businesses to a former surgeon general of the USA. ILTM Cannes attendees will also be the first to read a bold new piece of research into today’s new breed of Ultra-HNW and HNW traveller, commissioned by ILTM in collaboration with Wealth-X.