AWTTE - The Arab World Travel and Tourism Exchange trade show - made a slow comeback last month after an absence of two years. Around 13 national pavilions and 110 exhibiting companies were present including Cyprus, Greece, Jordan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Syria and the UAE.
The exhibition was inaugurated on October 16 by the newly appointed Lebanese Minister of Tourism Elie Marouni in the presence of other Arab dignitaries.
“Lebanon will soon be able to regain its economy and its previous position in tourism, and thanks you for your participation. Hopefully we will rebuild what was destroyed if the right conditions are present,” said Marouni.
AWTTE is organised by the Lebanese Minister of Tourism in collaboration with Al Iktisaad Wal Amaal and gives tour operators, traders, travel agencies, hotels, airlines a chance to promote tourism and meet with respective clients and individuals in the field.
There were many programmes during the trade show including the ISO 90001 seminar organised by the Association of Travel and tourist agents in Lebanon.
Exhibitors included commercial executive, Judith Yiannaka from Cyprus. Promoting AEOLOS Travel’s online booking service for flights and hotels to Cyprus, she said, “It’s our first time in Lebanon. Lebanon is close to Cyprus and there is a lot of potential and opportunities for business. We are interested in attracting travel agents who are interested in our business to business systems.”
Madiha Idriss from Egypt Air was pleased to be at AWTTE this year. “We are hoping the exhibition will be good and we hope to meet a lot of new clients, although we understand the limitations of AWTTE this year due to the political and economical unrest.”
Selling destinations as far as India is what C Gangadhar from Incredible India hoped to achieve at AWTTE. “AWTTE is a good place to sell India as a destination and was very professionally organised, we had a red carpet welcome, and it’s going to be good business.”
Ahmad Darwich from Kuwait Airlines has been participating in AWTTE as far as he can remember. “We meet a lot of travel agents and people who are interested in Kuwait airlines. We take the opportunity to listen to customers’ needs in order to improve our services.”
Visitors who were optimistic the first few days of AWTTE showed some signs of disappointment regarding the size of the exhibition. “It was not very crowded and we didn’t really meet a lot of tour operations,” said one exhibitor who refused to be identified. “It’s good that AWTTE is back yet we thought it would be a bigger.”
Yet, the presence of AWTTE in Lebanon restores much hope to a country that has been affected by political turbulence for the past three years, and its aim was to make Lebanon once again the hub of touristic exchange and promotion.
Increible India’s C Gangadhar couldn’t have given a better description to AWTTE. “It’s going to be good business because tourism never sleeps. It makes people move from place to place. It goes on.”
by Ragda Mughrabil