Travel Exhibition Proves Tourism Resilience

The 10th anniversary of Arabian Travel Market, the Middle East’s premier travel and tourism exhibition, which began a four day run at Airport Expo Dubai, highlighted the resilience of the tourism industry in the aftermath of war and in the face of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS).

“Despite the tremendous challenges of the past few months, the Arabian Travel Market 2003 was almost 10% larger in terms of contracted exhibition space than last year,” said Tom Nutley, Reed Travel Exhibition chairman, which organizes the annual event. Arabian Travel Market, 2003 the first major league travel and tourism event to take place after the Iraq war, featured exhibitors from 55 countries who took up in total 9,000 square meters of exhibition space.

“This show could rightly be seen as a barometer to the determination of the international tourism industry to rise above all circumstances,” he said.