World Travel Market experienced a five per cent increase in participants with the event opening its doors to more than 50,000 delegates over the four days.

All visitor groups experienced growth, according to unaudited figures, with the WTM Buyers’ Club seeing an eight per cent increase.

This increase in senior buyers at WTM 2013 will see the event facilitate more than £2 billion in industry deals.

Other visitor group increases include trade visitors (up five per cent), international media (up four per cent) and exhibitor personnel (up two per cent) compared to WTM 2012.

The Monday of WTM is an exhibitor invite-only day with the aim of allowing exhibitors to hold discussions and negotiations with those buyers that they want to conduct business with.

The first day of WTM 2013 was a resounding success with invite-only visitor attendance up 12 per cent on last year’s event to almost 9,000.

The Monday morning Speed Networking session was phenomenally well attended with a record number of both exhibitors and WTM Buyers’ Club members discussing business deals before the exhibition floor opened.

Tuesday November 5th saw 18,292 visitors come to WTM, a seven per cent increase on the second day of last year’s event.

Tuesday is the busiest day of WTM as it is the first day the event is open to the whole industry following on from the exhibitor-invite only policy on the Monday.