19 October 2011, Singapore – ITB Asia 2011 opens today as the anchor event of Singapore Tourism Board’s TravelRave 2011, Asia’s mega travel and tourism festival which opened 17 October.
ITB Asia 2011 is a three-day trade show for the Asian Travel Market featuring 750 exhibitors from over 70 countries. Botswana, Finland, Croatia and Iraq are participating for the first time. Hilton Worldwide is also a first-time exhibitor and official partner.
UNWTO secretary-general Taleb Rifai shared at the opening press conference today that international tourists should hit 1.8 billion by 2030. International tourism will continue to grow at a more moderate pace than the past decades. The number of international tourists arrivals worldwide will increase by an average 3.3% annually resulting in an average 43 million additional tourists joining the tourism marketplace. It is projected that arrivals will surpass the one billion mark by 2012, up from 940 million in 2010.
Japan is the Official Partner country of ITB Asia 2011. Japan National Tourism Organization statistics show that post-earthquake foreign visitor numbers to Japan fell by almost 40% in a month, The figure has been steadily increasing returning close to pre-disaster levels in just six months. Over 3.3 million travellers visited Japan in the first 7 months of this year. According to PhoCusWright, Japan has one of the highest online travel penetrations in Asia Pacific with online travel playing a key role in the country’s recovery.
ITB Asia 2011 expects a turnout of over 6,000 visitors representing the Meetings, Incentives, Conventions and Exhibitions (MICE) sector, leisure and corporate travel markets.
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