Abu Dhabi’s busiest ever Arabian Travel Market participation – with the partners in the destination’s pavilion last week processing over 4,200 meetings and enquiries – reflects the huge, recent strides in the emirate’s tourism offering, according to pavilion organiser Abu Dhabi Tourism & Culture Authority.

“It was our most active participation yet with 52 pavilion co-sharers offering almost 90 product lines, at least a third of which were new-to-market,” explained Mubarak Al Nuaimi, director promotions and overseas offices, TCA Abu Dhabi.

“It was also our most animated pavilion to date with a range of heritage activities attractions huge attention as did our F1 simulator challenge, the photo booth opportunities offered by our partners Yas Island and the character participation of animals from Al Ain Zoo and spaceman drivers from Yas Marina Circuit.

“The activity attracted people to the stand and the smaller partners benefitted from the increased footfall.

“Given the response, we will endeavour to leverage powerful activations at all our worldwide promotions tailoring them, where necessary, to the individual requirements of each specific market.”

Enquiries which flooded into the stand crossed the spectrum of tourism sectors.

“From cruise, to conferences, from leisure to activity breaks, the breadth of enquiries was greater than ever and leads us to believe that the ratio of business to leisure tourism stays in emirate is shifting –in this particular aspect the show as a game-changer for us,” said Al Nuaimi.

“We were also encouraged by the much increased interest from the media in the emirate’s tourism offering with scheduled interviews covering broadcast, print and online from the Gulf, Latin America, the UK, Czech Republic, Russia and Germany.”

Stakeholders left the show processing group enquiries from India and Latin America, convention enquiries from the US, the Gulf and the UK and packaging discussions from leading industry players in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar.