The African Travel and Tourism Association (ATTA) has postponed its Experience Africa event – Europe’s first three-day B2B Africa-focused travel tradeshow – to June next year.

The event unites African suppliers with the most relevant, active buyers from the UK and Europe. 

“Over the past few months, we have been closely monitoring the COVID travel restrictions situation both locally in the UK and internationally across both Africa (for our suppliers) and Europe (for buyers).

“Unfortunately, almost all of East and Southern Africa remain on the UK’s inbound ‘red list’, meaning that anyone coming into the UK from those destinations must enter hotel-managed quarantine for 10 nights, which is clearly not a viable option for anyone coming to attend a trade show over here,” explained ATTA CEO, Chris Mears.

He added that the current uncertainty about when restrictions were going to be eased would not only impact the number of visitors to Africa from the UK over the coming months but also affect the viability of the show itself.

“Ultimately, it is our aim to be able to run a great show in person, by providing the face-to-face interaction that Experience Africa has always delivered, and we don’t want to run a ‘watered-down’ event. Furthermore, and based on feedback from suppliers, we don’t believe there is an appetite to run a digital replacement event,” added Mears.
 
Experience Africa will therefore be held as a standalone event, still taking place at the Kia Oval, London, from June 20 to 22 next year.

“We do understand that many members, particularly those based in the UK and Europe, would still like to take part in a B2B trade show in 2021 and, thanks to our partnership with Jacobs Media Group, ATTA will be part of Global Travel Week, a hybrid event taking place at the Kia Oval from September 25 to 27 this year, welcoming worldwide destinations and their private-sector representatives to meet and do business with qualified UK buyers,” said Mears.
 
Global Travel Week, powered by Connections, features a number of initiatives, including highly targeted one-to-one meetings and experiences for both the luxury and mainstream markets, insightful panel discussions (in adventure, luxury, leisure travel, crisis communications and Commonwealth countries), networking receptions, working lunches and a conference on travel technology.

Global Travel Week provides an optimal window of opportunity for recovery and resurgence, offering two and a half days of pre-scheduled one-to-one meetings with qualified agencies, leading to long-lasting business relationships.

Download the Global Travel Week brochure HERE.