Business Travel Show Middle East 2010 opens in full force

His Highness was accompanied by Abdulla Tawakul, SVP, Corporate & Regional Network, Dnata, Calum Taylor, Managing Director Centaur Media, Majid Al Mulla, VP Air Networks, Dnata and Bader Al Ansari, Associate Director of Events, GCC, Jumeirah Group.

The 2010 show opened to much anticipation and speculation about the recovery of the business travel sector, both in the Middle East and globally. All indications are that confidence is returning to the market with a healthy mix of exhibitors and visitors from the region and abroad. The aviation and hotel sector included the likes of Virgin Atlantic, United Airlines, Air France, Air Charter International, Empire Aviation Group, whilst the hotel sector took in Jumeirah Hotels Group, The Address Hotels & Resorts, Southern Sun, Atlantis The Palm, Mövenpick Hotels & Resorts and Premier Inn just to name a few. Support services such as ground transportation were represented by the likes of Europcar and Hertz, whilst the core component of corporate travel management companies and technology providers had an impressive presence through providers including, Dnata, Alshamel, Travelport, Asuna Travel, FCM and Orient Travel.

Mike Sherrard, Managing Director, Centaur Travel Group the show's organizer said, "The commitment to reinstate efficient business travel policies was very clearly a shared goal amongst our exhibitors this year. The exchange of information and best practice was amongst our primary objectives this year and this was openly appreciated by the participants".

Paving the way for the discussion platform is of course the ACTE run Education Conference programme, which ran a full day of keynote presentations and round table sessions and which will continue for the second day of the show. Monique Swart, Project Manager, ACTE commented, "We could not be more pleased with the attendance and participation at this year's show. We spent a good deal of time ensuring we offered a wide spectrum of topics and speakers, which were not only expert, but topical, relevant and easily transferrable from the conference to application within the various sector services".

The show will continue to run throughout from 10:00am to 5:00pm Tuesday October 26th with prize draws from Southern Sun Hotels and Xperienz Holidays and a full day of conference sessions from ACTE. Also today, keynote speaker Michael Jackson, one of the best business-to-business speakers on the global professional speaker circuit will open and close the Education Conference programme.

The Business Travel Show Middle East 2011 is scheduled to take October 31st - November 1st.