ATM 2012 was opened by HH Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, prime minister and vice president of the United Arab Emirates and ruler of Dubai, with Reed Travel Exhibitions portfolio director Mark Walsh to his left.
In addition to online travel, what other tourism trends do you think will dominate at ATM?
Urban tourism and sustainability are two key travel trends.
We recently conducted some market research which has shown that more than 276 hotels and hotel apartments are located within 2km of one of five mega shopping malls in Dubai.
The original research was conducted to look at how urban tourism has grown exponentially over the past two decades and how the retail landscape has expanded in parallel to mark ATM’s own 20th anniversary celebrations.
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Well over 80% of tourists look for sustainable solutions when traveling and more than 40% of them are prepared to pay extra for it.
At last year’s show, the irrefutable benefits of sustainability in the Middle East hospitality industry were bought to the fore by internationally-recognised Green Globe Certification (GGC), at a dedicated ‘sustainable tourism’ seminar which is now part of ATM’s seminar programme.
The number of environmentally-aware tourists is rising as more travellers consider impact on the environment.
As a global pressure group, environmentalists have gone from being a fringe group of ‘tree huggers’ in the 80s and early 90s to a powerful lobby courted by all mainstream political parties.
And as the UAE is estimated to spend up to $80 billion on energy by 2020 to meet the increasing demands of a growing population and burgeoning tourism sector, reduced consumption has never been higher on the hospitality business agenda.
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