Inside WTM: One Year with Event Director Chris Carter‑Chapman

The event industry news podcast is sponsored by present communications present provides broadcast quality live hybrid and virtual event production trusted by organizations where reliability really matters from corporate town halls and conferences to high profile live streams. They design and deliver fully resilient systems that work first time. Hello everybody, welcome along to the event industry news podcast with me James Dixon, wishing all a very good morning afternoon or evening wherever or whenever indeed you tune into today's podcast from, and get excited to talk about that you know so today's podcast subject and meet today's podcast guest joining me on the link today is Chris Carter Chapman.

Chris is the event director for arguably the world's biggest travel event brand world travel market Chris was appointed as event director in May 2025 so we're about 12 months into pose now Chris firstly a very warm welcome to the podcast How are you today. Thank you James I'm delighted to be here it's lovely to be on the show. Thank you very much. Yeah.

And so yeah, a year in post. Give us the headlines first of all for any of the event professionals who listen to the podcast regularly, but who may not be familiar with world travel market as a brand and as an event. I think headlines, having been in post for years and I have significantly less hair than when I took this job in May last year and well travel market is I think in a, in a category of its own in terms of scale and size and certainly the largest event that I've worked on in the various careers events career I've had over the years and I think world travel market celebrated its 46th anniversary at the last edition and I've included the online version we did during coded, so it has significant heritage and history over that period obviously launching as it did in 1980.

And it's been in multiple venues it's been in Earl's Court it's been an Olympia, it's now in its home of Excel, where we take all 125,000 square meters that are now available, thanks to Excel's expansion and WTM is the world's most influential travel and tourism event, and it brings representation from all corners of the globe. There's over 180 countries represented and there aren't that many more countries in the world so we've almost got a full house. And I say that 46 year history, it has evolved to be a crucial meeting point in the events calendar for travel professionals from right across the world.

How did it compare to previous events that you'd worked on when you were you daunted by the challenge we excited by it were you all of those or both of those things. I'm excited is one word. And yes, I think daunted to a degree so world travel market, I would say encapsulates all of the challenges that I faced in the various sectors I've worked in and the various events that I've managed all in one. You've obviously got a very complex build when it comes to your, your floor space and your, your show plan.

You've got lots of different areas that need to seamlessly come together and you need to provide a journey for visitors. That is clear and comprehensive, so that they don't feel too overwhelmed by, you know, the sheer size and scale of the show so getting to grips with all of that. It's obviously key very early on, understanding a lot of those long standing relationships with key stakeholders in the industry, whether that be associations clients partners. And indeed our visitors and the work we do with government the work we do with the United Nations and other transnational bodies, there was a lot to sink my teeth into last May.

When it comes to that customer journey at the event itself because of its sheer scale. Is it feasible for for for people to attend the event in the way that they might attend smaller trade events relevant to their, you know, different business sectors, where some people may leave a certain element of their visit to the event down to serendipity. Obviously, a lot, a lot of events want you to pre plan your, your visits there to pre schedule meetings to look at the activity but with the sheer scale of the event that you are operating.

How important are those pre show communications to the delegates to the attendees to help shape and make sure that their time spent during the event is as productive as possible. So I think it's hugely important and obviously with the sheer scale of WTM the pre event communications are key to helping people plan the business and also optimizing their time on site now obviously we'd like people to attend each of the three days of the show and some people will do that, but some people will just come in for a day and they really want to get the most out of that visit so all the way down to which entrance.

Should they enter WTM from should they get off at the Prince Regent entrance or should they get off a custom house. That could save them a good 20 minutes half an hour depending on the exhibitors that they want to go and visit the show so all of our pre pre comms really focuses on you know what are you looking to achieve the event, have you downloaded the connect me app so you're are you able via the WTM app to book your meetings. Sure, you know shortlist exactly who you want to interact with and then we've got various tools that can help people really maximize their journey around the show we have what's called the highway that runs all the way around WTM.

And if you stay on that highway you'll essentially see the entire show eventually take you a while, so even if you go for the i'm just going and I haven't had time to plan because let's be honest we're all super busy and sometimes you don't have time to do the pre event planning that we love all of our visitors to do. If they could then get yourself on the highway and you'll see all of WTM and they take you a few hours, but you'll certainly see the whole thing. Other you know just think about sort of modern day technology and apps and and indoor base of tracking technology that's available now all of these fantastic tools.

They're at the disposal of the modern day event organizer and just referencing again the scale of it. If somebody wants to pre plan a meeting in a certain area of the of the show floor and then the next meeting is a completely different area. Those who know excel know that if you're a complete opposite ends, it could take you 1520 minutes longer, maybe to transition from one end to the other, do you build that in to the tech tools that are actually available to attendees now.

We do so you're quite right, I think a lot of people we look at the post show feedback and some people said, could we have a Segway could we have a golf buggy you know the sheer size. You that if your meetings are scheduled in such a way that you were visiting our Europe halls, which are. S1 and one for those people who know the menu immediately as you enter from the West entrance and then you wanted to go over to maybe our tech area which will hopefully talk about a little while in the maritime halls, which is the new part of itself.

You're right, you could spend 20 minutes making that journey so actually our connect connect me tool works to say when you're booking your meetings actually you probably want to sequence them in this order. Because that will maximize your time on site and it will minimize the time you're spending moving between meetings so you're totally right we've had to bring in the technology to really support people and help ease their journey. And I guess that those kind of developments can only happen and evolve, given the modern way that we can access event data attendee data etc.

Again, when you think back to 25 years ago, the very sort of limited data and very sort of archaic paper weighted data that we had available in terms of attendee numbers. Inevitably, you would be able to speak to them and get a certain amount of feedback from attendees but. Again, going back to the sort of the tech side of things and we'll we'll use that to maybe talk about this this new tech area that you alluded to, but you know the data that's now available now must be so much more powerful in order to manipulate and shape how you are, you know, promoting the attendee experience.

It absolutely is, and the event will evolve quite significantly this year in terms of the layout of the floor plan and how we have zoned the show and that is directly in response to consumer data. Exactly, so it's what our visitors are telling us it's the groups of exhibitors they want to interact with how they want to interact with them. And also how they want to travel between different areas of the show, so we have for that reason, for a number of reasons, but that's been one of the key ones launched.

WTM travel tech, which is a dedicated part of the show, which is where all of our private sector exhibitors will be located. And for those people who are familiar with WTM or indeed Excel since it expanded into its phase three expansion with 25,000. Additional square meters we decided to put all of our travel tech providers in that maritime hall, so that they can have. A dedicated space dedicated entrance there'll be an innovation tech zone, as you come into the venue from the east, where you'll be able to see robotics and AI and cutting edge technology, you'll be able to feel interact with them.

And then you'll make your way into the maritime hall where all of the travel tech will be located. So, therefore, if you're a travel tech buyer which many of our attendees are and you specifically want to interact with travel tech providers. You know you're going to base yourself in the east of the venue this year, but with full access to the full entirety of WTM and vice versa, and we have a lot of people who. will be attending WTM maybe to see a destination provider or to explore and find new destination providers, but they'll also want to have travel tech meetings as well, so they'll structure their day perhaps they'll start.

At the West entrance in the morning and then make their way over into travel tech in the afternoon. And travel tech for us year on year has grown so significantly. Hugely disruptive force positive force within the industry at the moment. And we saw a 55% increase from 24 to 25 in terms of travel tech providers at WTM so to embrace that to give them that holistic dedicated offering launching WTM travel tech this year show which we're hugely excited about.

And it's so important isn't it that at the at the B2B level of the travel industry that the people. If they are wanting to promote tech down to consumer level it's so important that the industry itself understands what's available and what these tools are because it's presumably an ever evolving landscape, even from the moment that a tech exhibitor books with you by the time it comes to the actual. Door doors opening on day one things will have changed with those tech providers.

That's absolutely right and one of the reasons we've launched the innovation zone this time around is so that we're able to respond react to those developments that are going to take place between now and November. And some of the new disruption that we're going to see because of the pace of change that we're seeing within AI at the moment you know people talk about it as. The new industrial revolution, and if you look at how it's impacting all facets of travel, both for consumers, but also for providers.

You know the scale of change and the pace of changes is staggering so we've got our future stage, which is content stage specifically dedicated to travel technology to disruption to to future gazing and that runs for all three days. And that's located in the heart of the travel tech area so anyone who's looking for what's next within travel technology WTM travel tech is the place to be come November fabulous. Outside of the actual Excel footprint, you know, we've referenced on several occasions the sheer scale of it and the fact that you are now taking all of the available space in Excel.

But because of the very nature of the event, and given that scale, you will have a vast amount of international visitors coming to the event now, which means that presumably your operations must to an extent extend beyond the perimeters of Excel itself. I'm thinking of the city airport I'm thinking of the access that you now have via the Elizabeth line directly into Heathrow airport and all of those factors must play a part in in the organizational aspect of it as well working outside the boundaries of the venue itself.

Absolutely. I mean, 46 and a half thousand attendees WTM 2025 which is the largest it's been in our history, and a lot of work goes into their journey coming into the country because half of all of our attendees have come in from overseas. So it's a very significant number of people, we helped plan their journeys, we helped try and make them seamlessly as possible with CFL joys, which always happen, you know, they're always going to happen, we just need to embrace that fact and work out how best to mitigate any problems on the day, but we work with the airports, we work with the main transport hubs, the main stations.

How do we ease people's journey, how do we minimize their carbon footprint as they get to us, which is obviously very important for us, and indeed our businesses have made it very clear to us that that's something that they want us to focus on so we work very closely with them on how to minimize it. As I said earlier, which exit to which entry and exit to use, where are they going after that, you know, a lot of people have meetings in London around the show. And then there'll be going on to a plethora of evening events that take place across the capital, you know, we estimate there's over 200 evening events that are taking place in various locations around London directly connected to the show so yeah lots goes into that and last year we had a really helpful shuttle service from City Airport, whereas if you were a WTM attendee, there was a special complimentary electric car that would bring you over to the venue so we're looking at innovative ways to make it as easy as possible for people to attend the event.

And of course it's so important, given the very nature of the event itself, it's a world travel market, you know that there is an added level of pressure I guess that, you know, you want to showcase London to an extent and make that journey and that travel process as seamless and as easy as possible, because I dare say there is an underlying element of wanting to showcase the actual city itself where the event is being held. It's very much true and, you know, the economic benefit that these attendees and our visitors have to the economy, you know, cannot be overstated.

You know, 2.2 billion pounds worth of deals are signed during the course of World Travel Market Week, which is a very, very significant sum. But then the direct value to London and the UK economy is also very significant. We've actually just updated this analysis for this year's show based on what was delivered in 2025 and in 2026 we're on course for that figure to be 225 million pounds worth of economic benefit to London from all of those visitors coming in, staying in the capital, spending in the capital, conducting those meetings that I talked about that sit around us as well.

And, you know, we work with the mayor's office, we work with London and partners to really showcase the value of events to the UK economy, WTM being a huge contributor. Yeah, and you wouldn't, you wouldn't have to, it wouldn't be, you know, a long process to just sit with a piece of paper and realise how many sort of secondary benefits there are of an event of that size. You know, when you think of just the sheer numbers of crew to build the event, the sheer numbers of staff required on site in the catering, the hospitality, the food and beverage, just within Excel, you mentioned, you know, 200 or so, you know, peripheral events, evening events being hosted.

All of those will require a venue of which they will require staff, etc, etc. So it's easy to sort of realise how that figure can be, can be reached fairly easily, actually, when you start understanding the scale of the event. Yeah, the economic numbers, I think, really do speak for themselves. And if you think about, you know, travel more generally and its economic impact, one in 10 jobs now are connected to our industry.

And we play a very direct role in that, as you say, over the course of the event, but also in the months leading up to it. You've got hundreds of people working on WTM from all the destinations around the world that will want a presence there in many, many months, as people can imagine. Planning is going into this, and many people start talking to me about their plans for the following show, immediately after the show that they've just run, which is very organised of them. I like to have just a couple of weeks to breathe, but they're already thinking about how can we take our activation beyond what we did last year?

How can we, you know, Trendfest, which is our experiential activation zone, what can we do that's genuinely different, exciting, that would entice people to come and visit us? So huge amounts of pre-planning goes into this work, and it supports many thousands of jobs. It would perhaps be foolish of me not to ask the question about future targets, simply because we've mentioned on a few occasions now that you are at full capacity, essentially, within the confines of, you know, what Excel has to offer in terms of floor space.

For many trade shows, their sort of ongoing target year on year is growth, and they would usually see growth as more exhibitors, more visitors. More exhibitors means they have to expand the physical size of the show, take up more footprint of whichever venue they are hosting their event in. Having already reached that physical capacity of Excel, how does that realign your targets? What do your objectives become as an event when physically you're already at capacity?

So it's an interesting challenge, and whilst there are some opportunities for us to grow physically, certainly in the expansion, whilst we fill all of the halls beneath, there's about 25 rooms above it where we're putting in the WTM Leaders Summit, which we're running for the first time, which will be for heads of tourism offices from right across the globe to come together and discuss issues specifically commensurate with their level. So we're activating that space. It's where we have our United Nations Summit, which is in its 20th year.

So that's a very exciting milestone for us. So we're filling the space with different sorts of activations and meetings on top of traditional exhibition space. But, you know, in terms of targets, what's so important for us is driving the number of buyers who are there. We managed to increase that by 8% year-on-year from 24 into 25.

So that's a really important target metric for us this time, is more buyers from more destinations coming to the show to interact with our exhibitors and to sign those crucial deals that make up that 2.2 billion that I mentioned earlier. The buyers club is the real driving force behind that. So we are really focused on how to get more buyers through the door.

How do we tailor content for them? How do we create mini curated agendas for them? How do we really ensure that they are able to access the event in the way they want to? One of the ways we're doing that this year is launching new VIP lounges for our buyers.

We've got our business class lounges and now our first class lounges. We're in travel after all. So we've gone with a well-trodden route on that, which is the air travel route. And that allows them to just take a breath from a very frantic, frenetic event, recharge, check their itinerary and then back into their meetings.

So it really will be a focus on quality attendees, more buyers than ever before. And how does, in terms of the wider landscape and the wider brand of the show shape itself, its home is in London, its home is at Excel. And as you said, this is now a show that will be in its 46th year in 1980. So that's the year I was born.

So it's I presume it's 46 incarnation this year. How does the brand extend on an international level? You know, how important is it for you to maintain a presence at other events internationally throughout the year? So World Travel Market London, as we just said, is obviously our longest standing part of the family and where it all began.

But we actually have sister shows in multiple locations across the globe. We have ATM, which is running in September. We have South America. We have South Africa.

So there's multiple WTMs and also new WTMs coming online this year. So we'll be running one in Riyadh. We'll be running a show in India, which are specifically focused on their local markets. But WTM London really sits there bringing all of the events together in the family as the global meeting place around which all of our sister shows exist.

So it means over the course of the year, should you so wish, you could go to a WTM pretty much every other month if you desired. But each of them speak to their specific markets, which is why they all coexist and work so well together. But really, for many people, and I was so lucky to hand an award out to a journalist last year who had covered every single WTM since 1980. He'd personally been on site.

And obviously, I had not hit a year at that moment. He'd hit 45, soon to be 46. And the evolution that he talked me through that he'd witnessed since his first show in 1980 was really staggering and impressive. So I think a lot of people feel they're coming home to WTM London when they visit us in November.

It's been a fascinating insight into an absolute behemoth of an event. We're genuinely privileged that we've had a chance to have a, albeit a brief chat and get a little bit of that insight with our guest today on the Event Industry News podcast, the event director for World Travel Market, Chris Carter-Chapman. Chris, thank you so much for taking 20 minutes or so out of your day to chat to us today and the very, very best of luck with this year's event. Congratulations indeed on one year in the role.

Thank you, James. It's been an absolute pleasure, and I hope to see everybody in a not-so-sunny but hopefully busy early November. Fabulous. And before we wrap up today's podcast, just a couple of very, very quick mentions.

WTM.com is the website for World Travel Market. Very, very easy to find, but WTM.com will take you directly there.

So do have a good look around the website and find out a little bit more. There's plenty of information on there that may answer some of the questions that perhaps we haven't had a chance to get into today. So please do take a few minutes out of your day to have a look at their website directly. Of course, please also check the eventindustrynews.

com website. If you are listening to today's podcast on your podcast audio platform, please do make sure you head over to the website to check out the latest news features, special supplements, and of course, the supplier directory. If you work in the events industry and you're looking for a product, supplier, or a service, the chances are you'll find it within the supplier directory on eventindustrynews.com, along with video versions of all of our podcasts.

My thanks again to my guest on today's podcast, Chris Carter-Chapman from World Travel Market, and we'll see you on the next edition of the Event Industry News podcast. Goodbye, everybody.