Messe Berlin together with the Indo-German Chamber of Commerce organised a presentation on ITB Asia in Mumbai. The Indo-German Chamber of Commerce is the Indian representative office of Messe Berlin and in this capacity is the contact office for both ITB Berlin and ITB Asia.

Speaking on the occasion were Mr. Nino Gruettke, Executive Director of Messe Berlin (Singapore) and the head of the ITB Asia team and Ms. Deepika Unni, the Indian Representative for ITB Berlin/ ITB Asia.

Mr. Gruettke highlighted the main points of ITB Asia, stressing on the fact that ITB Asia has received more bookings this year than the past years at the same point in time. ITB Asia has a unique set up that is very different from ITB Berlin. The main difference being the Hosted Buyer Program that is present at ITB Asia. With this program, each exhibitor is assured of 30 appointments in the course of 3 days. Over and above this there is always the possibility to meet trade visitors, press etc who are walking the show.

ITB Asia focuses on 3 key industry segments- MICE, Corporate and Leisure travel. Since ITB Asia is a platform for the Asian Market, about 70% of all exhibitors and buyers come from the Asian region. This gives the opportunity to all sellers to network with new buyers, other exhibitors, and trade visitors etc who are from new and emerging markets.

Mr. Gruettke went on to talk about maximizing trade fair participation in general for all participants and gave a brief summary of the main points an exhibitor needs to bear in mind when planning his/ her trade fair participation.

Ms. Deepika Unni later spoke on the number of Indian exhibitors who had signed up for ITB Asia already and mentioned that there was a great mix of existing exhibitors and fresh applicants for space. This shows that the brand of ITB Asia is getting established and becoming a part of the marketing calendar for the travel industry.