1st December 2013

The World Travel Market 2013, held at London’s ExCel centre last month, had a record 50,000 attendees this year. The annual event for the international travel and tourism industry featured almost 5,000 exhibitors, representing organisations and travel destinations from 184 countries and regions, with attendance up 5% on last year.

This increasing level of interest is in line with the global growth of the industry. According to the UN World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), ‘international tourist arrivals grew by 4% in 2012 surpassing a record 1 billion tourists globally for the first time in history’, and this growth is set to continue in 2013 and beyond.

Increased opportunity to travel seems to be tapping in to a latent demand. But the massive social, economic and environmental impacts of tourism mean that it is essential we understand the reasons for its growth – to understand why people travel. The ITC’s Why Travel? project does just that, exploring our underlying motivations for travel from a wide range of perspectives in order to help make better decisions about travel and transport. See www.whytravel.org for more information.