October 23, 2013 by MICE Ranking

ITB Asia 2013 Opening Ceremony

Celebrating Good Fortune

Making dramatic head thrusts, lions dance and prance to the sounds of drums, gongs and cymbals outside the entryway to ITB Asia Exhibition Hall.

The lion dance is believed to bring good luck and fortune to the business.

We often get to see these lions in red, white, and even blue or green.  At ITB Asia, the lucky lions are a match in colors to the ITB logo!

Mr S Iswaran, Second Minister for Home Affairs and Trade & Industry; Mr Jan Vapaavuori, Minister of Economic Affairs, Finland; and Dr. Christian Göke, CEO of Messe Berlin, performed the honors of the ceremonial ribbon cutting to inaugurate the opening.

Press Conference

Panelists:-

♠  Dr. Christian Göke, CEO of Messe Berlin
Announcing new developments and highlights of the show, here are some of the briefs that Dr. Göke touches on:-

•  The US Pavilion almost doubled in size from last year.
•  Greece and Russia first time officially participating in the show.
•  A string of focus on the MICE Industry, with number of exhibitors in this field almost doubling
•  Strong backbone of the show: Conference program comprising 3800 minutes of intense content delivered on that knowledge platform
•  Increase in the number of participating CEOs is a good indicator for the health of the show
•  Another indicator of success is exhibitors spending on the show.  The more exhibitors spend on the booth, the more belief they have.

♠  Mr Lionel Yeo, Chief Executive, Singapore Tourism Board
Mr Lionel Yeo on Fruitful Partnership:-
“We look for partners who will challenge us, and we look for partners who are prepared to be challenged by us. Because our belief is that only if we challenge each other, we will raise each other’s game, and we will produce excellence and we will deliver to customers, to the trade, to the industry.”

Mr Yeo spoke of STB’s ambition to position TravelRave as the pre-eminent event for the travel industry in Asia, and how events are carefully curated to allow synergies across geography, across content, and across network, thus creating maximum opportunities for all in the trade.

♠  Mr Marcio Favilla, Executive Director for Competiveness, External Relations and Partnerships, United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO)
Mr Marcio Favilla shares most recent data available for the first 3 quarters of 2013:-

•  International tourist arrivals grew by 5.3% worldwide for the first 8 months of 2013, exceeding short-term and long-term forecasts of 3 to 4%.
•  Much of this growth is driven by the Asian Pacific region, considered to be tourism’s new centre of gravity, with Asia remaining one of the fastest growing tourism regions in the world.
•  UNWTO figures reveals that international arrivals to Asia accounted for 23% of total global arrivals for the same period, fuelled by strong demand from China / Hong Kong.
•  Japan sees a 21% increase in the first 8 months of the year, continuing its recovery process.

♠  Ms Caroline Plant, Executive Director, World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC)
Ms Caroline Plant touches on the economic and social benefits of global tourism, and cites the importance of increasing travel facilitation with the removal of visas and the abolition of duties that hampers the growth of the industry and costs jobs.

A brief recap of WTTC’s findings:-
•  Tourism provides US$6.6 trillion contribution (9% of the world’s GDP).
•  And 266 million jobs to the global economy (1 in 11 jobs on the planet).
•  In Asia last year, 144 million jobs stemmed from tourism.
•  The strength of the travel and tourism industry compared to other sectors: travel and tourism is the third largest industry in the world.
•  Travel and tourism contributes more to economies than the automobile industry.

♠  Mr Chetan Kapoor, Research Analyst, Asia Pacific, PhoCusWright
Mr Chetan Kapoor touches on the growth of the Asia Pacific travel industry:-

•  Japan: 2011 devastation bad for market but its leadership and tourism industry have partnered and campaigned globally to attract tourists.  More recently, the icing on the cake was Tokyo winning the 2020 Olympic bid.
•  Myanmar: Open for tourism as well.  This year, the country expects 1.5 million tourists.
•  India: With it’s currency issue casting a shadow on the country’s economic outlook, India moves to ease visa restrictions to attract tourists.

“We expect Asia Pacific travel market to maintain its growth through 2015 to reach US$407.3 billion and China will account for a third of that.  The Indonesian market is also poised for rapid development in the next three years and double-digit growth is forecast for several Asia Pacific markets through 2015.” — Mr Chetan Kapoor, touching on PhoCusWright projected growth figures for the Asia Pacific region.