2012 was a record breaking year for Travel Technology Europe with a massive 24 per cent increase in visitor numbers and almost a third more exhibitors.

Now in its ninth year, Europe’s leading travel technology event, pulled in 4354 attendees over an incredibly busy and dynamic two days of business at Earls Court this week. 

82 exhibiting companies - specialising in a wide range of travel technologies – were on the Show floor, including Comtec, Codegen, Multicom, Pharos, ProCon, ISO, Digital Trip, Dolphin, Evolvi, Intuitive, HyperTech, Open Destinations, Vibe Software, Travelport, Barclaycard Payment Acceptance, Sabre, AdInsight, Infinity Tracking, HitchKiker, JFA Systems, Serious Games Institute, Partners-Solutions, For-Sight, Dataflexnet, Raileasy4business, Traveldoo, KDS, Lanyon, 7R Group and Syntec.

65 per cent of the space has already been rebooked for 2013 with many exhibitors securing bigger stand spaces for next year’s event.

New features were a big hit with visitors, including the Tech Launch Pad, Innovation Hot Spots, Hotel Trail and the Business Travel Technology Zone, which was located between Travel Technology Europe and its sister event the Business Travel Show.

The conference programme, which features sessions across the Travolution Theatre, TTE Travelport Live Theatre and Business Travel Technology Theatre was also a big success, with standing room only in many sessions including Digital Visitor’s session on using social media to maximise content, the Travolution Question Time session on mobile and Travelport’s session on innovation.

David Chapple, Event Director, said: “Travel Technology Europe has been a fantastic success this year with exhibitor and visitor numbers both up on 2011. It’s always great to achieve a marked increase in visitor numbers, but more importantly those visitors were top quality, senior decision makers ready to do business with our exhibitors.

“It shows that Travel Technology Europe has its finger on the pulse when it comes to delivering the right content for the industry making it worthwhile for our visitors to come back year on year. I’d like to extend a very big thank you to all of our visitors, exhibitors, speakers, sponsors and partners for helping to make Travel Technology Europe 2012 such a success.”

Exhibitor quotes:

Jonathan Greensted, Business Development Director of exhibitor Zolv, said: “Travel Technology Europe 2012 has been a great show for us. This is our third year exhibiting and it’s been the busiest yet. It’s been great to catch up with old friends and meet new people and to turn acquaintances into new clients. The quality of the conversations is much higher than at other exhibitions and we always generate leads at the Show.

“TTE is a key part of our business development strategy: it’s timed perfectly in the buying cycle for our customers and it attracts attendees who are specifically looking for travel technology. While other shows are in decline, TTE appears to be going from strength to strength and that’s why we’ve already rebooked for next year.”

Matt Eames, Sales Director at first time exhibitor Feefo, said:” It has been a fantastic Show, full of the right decision makers and absolutely no tyre-kickers. This Show fits perfectly into our marketing strategy – we moved into the travel market 18 months ago and we need to get our brand in front of the right people. We’ve achieved that here. The timing is great too – visitors are ready to buy and we’ve already had people saying they want to sign up.”

Visitor quotes:

Emma Anderson, Barclaycard: “The Show was really well attended and the two areas – business travel and travel technology – cross over well. Barclaycard has a 53 per cent market share in travel payments so it’s important for us to attend the event to look for trends and new and different technologies so we remain close to what’s happening.”

Leighton James, Visit Wales: “This is the first time I have visited Travel Technology Europe: it’s a great place to see what it going on in the market place and to meet a variety of people. I definitely plan to be back next year.”

Dates for the 2013 event are 5-6 February 2013 at Earls Court, London.