ANTOR welcomed 21 tourist boards and over 80 members of the travel trade from travel agents and home workers to tour operator sales and contract staff to MICE organisers, to join event sponsors the Lithuanian Embassy and the Czech Tourist Authority, for their inaugural “Meet the Travel Trade” networking event. The event aimed to build valuable relationships between the travel trade and antor members, with the ANTOR website being a one-stop shop for access to destination information. www.antor.com

The event was preceded in the afternoon by two free seminars open to the Travel Trade and ANTOR members. Firstly, Lyn Hughes, Editor-in-Chief at Wanderlust, spoke on the topic of Experiential and Adventure travel with her panel made up of Josephine Wiggall Lazarus (Quebec), Jean-Marc Flambert (St Lucia), Stephen Hurp (Jordan) and Marcelline Kuonen (Switzerland). The second seminar was in association with Dr Harold Goodwin, lecturer at Manchester University, on the topic of Responsible Tourism and he was joined by Trudi Pearce (responsibletravel.com), Cindy Landlust (Samoa) and Tracey Poggio (Gibraltar) on his panel.

Throughout the evening members of the travel trade had the opportunity to network with ANTOR members present including: Alberta, Austria, British Columbia, Canada, Cyprus, Egypt, Estonia, Finland, Belgium – Flanders, Germany, Gibraltar, Holland, Hungary, Jordan, Lithuania, Malta, Oman, Quebec, Samoa, Serbia and Switzerland.

The event provided a great opportunity for all members of the travel trade to meet in one place to discuss new products, niche markets and new programme ideas. The evening culminated in a raffle to win prizes kindly donated by the ANTOR members present.

Monica Hireker, Sales Director at TN Travel Services said, “Thank you for a great evening. It was informative and a good platform to meet lots of worldwide Tourist Offices.” Thomas Rast, Product Manager at Voyages Jules Verne also commented that, “It was a good evening and some good contacts have been made.” HF Holidays were particularly delighted to attend as they use the ANTOR website on a regular basis to locate UK Tourist Board offices and contacts.

The event was an excellent opportunity for antor to make itself, its members and its missions better known to members of the Travel Trade and to make new connections in the travel industry. “ANTOR Meets the Travel Trade 2014 was a successful first event, mirroring our already successful ANTOR Meets the Media event which takes place annually in September. We look forward to continuing our work promoting ANTOR and our members to the travel trade” says ANTOR Chairman, Tracey Poggio.

-Ends-

For images of the event, visit www.antor.com/galleries

For further information contact:
Alison Cryer, Executive Secretariat, ANTOR
Email: secretariat@antor.com
Tel: 0870 241 9084
Web: www.antor.com

About ANTOR

ANTOR is the principal lobbying organisation for the world's tourist offices. Its UK membership comprises national and regional tourist offices which are represented in Britain.

ANTOR's objectives include providing a fraternal forum for its members to meet and exchange ideas, to forge close relationships with all other sectors of the travel industry; to be recognised as one of the foremost advocates of responsible tourism and to comment on a wide range of issues affecting worldwide travel and tourism.

In the current climate, antor provides a unique opportunity for destinations to work together, pool their resources through joint marketing initiatives and really leverage their marketing spend. Many of our activities would be impossible for most of our destinations to undertake individually but working together we can really raise the profile of your destination.

ANTOR UK is a voluntary, non-political organisation which was established in 1952. It is run by a board of members which is elected each year at the Association's Annual General Meeting.