WTM closes on a festive note

The final day of WTM London 2017 concluded with WTM Festivals, allowing visitors to experience the culture, hospitality and cuisine of the Caribbean, Tokyo, Indonesia, Ecuador, Bulgaria, Ghana, Senegal and Brazil. Pertinent issues such as Brexit, overtourism and development were debated among the tourism ministers’ agenda. The annual UNWTO and WTM Ministers Summit debated strategies to cope with overtourism, which is threatening the tourism trade in destinations such as Barcelona, Venice and Amsterdam. Taleb Rifai, Secretary General, UNWTO, said there have been many protests against overtourism in 2017, with slogans such as “tourists go home” and “tourists are terrorists.” He warned, “We cannot continue to build five-star hotels in three-star communities. We need to diversify visitors’ activities, reduce seasonality and raise awareness of less busy destinations.”
WTM brought together the leadership of the International Hotel Investment Forum and WTM London’s expertise to create an exclusive platform for ministers and investors in travel destination development. Keith Evans, Vice President Hotels, Starwood Capital, highlighted Greece’s potential, “There’s a good strong fundamental tour infrastructure; Greece is setting itself up as a market that has an interesting few years ahead.”