Messe Berlin, which launched the inaugural ITB Asia at Suntec Singapore last month, reported exceeding its initial 500 exhibitor target.
Messe Berlin CEO Raimund Hosch confirmed that the show received 651 exhibiting companies and organisations from 58 countries and territories worldwide – with ITB Asia exhibitor space selling out in just nine months. The number of selected hosted buyers was 812, and trade visitors totalled around 1,000.
ITB Berlin, which is held annually in March, attracted some 11,000 exhibitors in 2008 from 186 countries and territories, who utilised 160,000 sq m of floor space. ITB Berlin focuses primarily on the European and North American markets. Messe Berlin’s intention, in launching ITB Asia, was to take its trade show expertise, contacts, and technical skills and diversify its well known brand into a completely new space.
Asia was chosen, according to Hosch, “Because it has a track record of offering impressive economic growth rates and it also offers a massive population, youthful demographics and amazing cultural diversity.”
Messe Berlin and the Singapore Tourism Board (STB), its strategic partner in the new venture, believe the staging of ITB Asia has proved timely.
As the first international travel trade show in Asia to be held after the tumultuous events of the past couple of months, ITB Asia is being seen as a barometer of business confidence in the future of travel and tourism demand. The strategic partnership between Messe Berlin and STB covers a minimum of three years, but Messe Berlin fully expects it to continue in the long term, attracting strong growth in exhibitors and buyers/trade visitors year on year.
Whether or not ITB Asia will also be opened up to the public is yet to be decided. “This will depend on what our exhibitors want,” said Hosch.