The Malta Tourism Authority recently participated at this year’s World Travel Market 2010 in London. WTM is one of Europe’s largest travel trade exhibitions with over 5,000 global tourism and travel product exhibitors, visited by over 45,000 travel industry participants, including 2,800 journalists.

The MTA participated at the fair through its new stand designed and built by Casapinta Design Group Ltd. The design was chosen after a competitive tender earlier this year and it will continue to be used at overseas tourism shows for the next seasons.

The MTA’s 115sqm stand also incorporated a separate area promoting Gozo and meetings were also conducted with operators specialising in promoting holidays to the sister island.

The exhibition provided the ideal platform for the MTA to drive forward its business agenda with key trade partners, tour operators and prospective niche agencies, also raising awareness of the Maltese islands with the UK Media.

No less than 16 hotel and trade co-exhibitors were present at the Malta stand, including Air Malta and the Gozo Tourism Association. Over 70 appointments were held at the fair led by the Parliamentary Secretary for Tourism, the Environment and Culture Mario de Marco, the chairman of MTA, Louis Farrugia and its CEO, Josef Formosa Gauci.

Alex Incorvaja, UK and Ireland Director of the MTA, said: “Notwithstanding a continued challenging trading environment in Britain, our meetings with clients have certainly given us positive indications for the next months. Current year-to-date figures show that Malta continues to perform positively with one of the highest growth rates when compared to a range of other Mediterranean destinations.”