Chris Carter-Chapman has spent 15 years in the events industry, enough to know that if an event isn’t broken, it doesn’t need fixing.
Speaking four months into his new job of WTM London event director, he is clear about his approach: “There’s a tendency when you come into a new event to radically try and change it; I’ve worked on previous events where there was a case for doing that.
“For WTM, that’s just not needed. It’s successful because of its evolution, so for me it’s about how can I add value to an already highly successful and treasured show.”
His former role was running the Festival of Marketing: “That was 4,000 attendees, rather small compared with the 40,000-plus you have at WTM,” he admits. So is WTM a challenge?
“WTM is a unique challenge in that you have 46 years of history and heritage; it’s one of the most influential travel and tourism events on the planet, but there’s a need to constantly evolve and change.
“Often you have events that need radical change or need to be relaunched or put into a new market or events where they’re at a point where you’re just keeping them running, whereas this is one that has all the heritage and is consistently growing, evolving and needs more and more space. It really is a unique challenge.”
Introducing 'WTM TV'
Speaking of space, WTM will this year fully utilise the extra 25,000 square metre extension to ExCeL, bringing the floor area to 125,000 square metres. “We are one of the few shows taking every part of it,” he says.
That new space will be partly taken by an expanded Africa region and by a new Trend Fest, an “experiential activation zone” that will allow brands and destinations to showcase their products. That means examples of gastronomy, film, sport and wellbeing tourism featuring chefs, dancers and other performers.
“We want to provide exhibitors with a space to bring their brands to life in a tangible way,” he says, agreeing with the suggestion Trend Fest will bring a consumer show-style feel to WTM.
The other new feature also takes place in ExCeL’s extension, upstairs in the Maritime Suite’s 25 rooms, where WTM Masterclasses will take place. Three two-hour sessions will be held each morning and afternoon and, unlike the rest of the conference programme, are paid-for events.
Carter-Chapman defends the decision to charge for these sessions. “They run for two hours, so they’re quite different from the free content. People are happily booking them,” he says, pointing to a growing interest in WTM’s conference content.
“I think we were 29% up last year in terms of session attendance, there’s a really big jump in people not just coming to meet people or visit exhibitors but sitting down in a content session.”
Another innovation is WTM TV, broadcast live and online. Carter-Chapman hopes this will “bring to life elements of the show that would otherwise be lost”. He promises “big-name presenters”.
Among exhibitors, Australia and New Zealand are back after a period of absence, adding to the total of more than 180 countries. “There’s not a lot of room to grow there in terms of the number of countries represented,” he says, adding there are no dramatic omissions among nations.
Largest WTM in history?
Is this a sign the industry is re-learning the value of meeting in person? Carter-Chapman thinks so.
“We connect virtually in business more and more. It’s been really interesting to talk to partners and attendees who say that actually this places a greater value on face-to-face interaction that they get at WTM and that they look forward to it even more than they previously did.”
He argues 4,000 exhibitors and 46,000 attendees last year prove him right. “We are on course to beat 46,000 this year and probably by a significant margin. It will be the largest WTM in history.”
As for next year, there will surely be more new elements, but the switch to a Tuesday-Thursday format will be retained. “We had a lot of feedback that that gives people more time to prepare. People are able to use Monday for preparation when previously they had to do it over the weekend, so we’ll be sticking with that for very much the foreseeable future.”
Meanwhile, as he prepares for this year’s event, he acknowledges the past efforts of his predecessors. “I’m standing on the shoulders of a lot of people that have spent decades building the show. Absolutely, this is their achievement.”
