Many of you will have either attended World Travel Market in London last week or, if not, will have followed the news coming out of the exhibition. An ABTA team was on hand to promote and represent the industry’s interests and the ABTA stand also attracted a large number of current and potential new Members. Our Destinations and Sustainability team met senior Government officials from over 20 destinations to discuss challenges Members have raised, such as health and safety, transport infrastructure and operational matters, as well as discussing further opportunities to work together. We also had ABTA staff speaking at a number of sessions to raise awareness of important industry issues such as how best to attract high quality staff into the industry, the importance of holidays for all, responsible tourism and animal welfare. I chaired a session on the need to reduce water and energy consumption which, with growing pressure on resources worldwide, is becoming an increasingly critical issue. Overall it was a very full few days with the WTM trends report reporting increased optimism amongst travel businesses and positive feedback from consumers for 2015.

Mark Tanzer, Chief Executive