MAGNUM Events and Exhibitions Management (MEEM) is once again organising one of the most successful events in Bahrain – the Bahrain International Travel Expo, popularly known as BITE.
“With all the positive reviews following the two consecutive BITE events, the world still can not get enough of BITE, so we are now planning an even bigger and better BITE under the theme Bringing the World to Bahrain,” says a spokesman.
In 2006, BITE enjoyed the participation of 81 companies from 27 countries and a turn out of 16,800 visitors from neighboring G.C.C. countries. For BITE 2007, MEEM is aiming to enlist a bigger number of exhibitors and is expecting 20,000 visitors to participate in the biggest travel and tourism exposition in the Northern Gulf.
“BITE is where the right company and the right people (exhibitors and visitors) come together at the right time to meet and showcase the most current in travel trends and to project new emerging travel destinations around the world,” says the spokesman.
The event serves as a venue to generate and discover new leads to expand and consolidate business connections and helps address specific issues for personal and corporate needs. BITE also holds seminars and lectures relevant to business. This accents its aim of becoming a catalyst to the rapidly growing tourism business in Bahrain and its entire region simply by providing innovative ideas and exciting destinations to existing clients while endeavoring to develop a host of new clientele.
“BITE 2006 was successful for us this year, as we used it as a showcase for our re-branded and re-vamped Kanoo Holidays product. The exposure and feedback that we received was extremely encouraging which has translated into very positive results for Kanoo Holidays,” said Roy Hughes, travel manager of Kanoo Travel.
Another exhibitor, Vassilis Theocharides, director of Cyprus Tourism, said, “BITE is a great opportunity to meet the agents in Bahrain and get feedback from the visitors and to identify their needs. The CTO is overall extremely satisfied with BITE, and definitely it has become one of the major events in the region for anyone in the travel industry to attend.”
Khosla Sandeep, vice president and head, business publication division of The Indian Express newspaper was pleased with the outcome of his participation in the Hosted Buyers Programme, “BITE 2006 was a unique experience as not only did one get to meet up with major players from the Travel industry but also fellow hosted buyers from various countries. It opened my eyes to what Bahrain has to offer as a destination for holding a successful MICE convention as the hotels & facilities were world class yet would fit in the budget. There are enough leisure activities one can indulge in especially the F1 Track”.
While Nicole Gottschalk, Director of Travelive said, “I enjoyed the workshop and the program very much and it has been a good place to get the first impressions and the first contacts! I am sure that Bahrain will keep on developing.”