ILTM Americas 2015 celebrates luxury travel’s ‘culture of creation’

“When you urbanise, you get rich and when you get rich, you travel more.”

ILTM Americas 2015 opened yesterday at The Fairmont Mayakoba in Riviera Maya, Mexico, the fourth edition of the luxury travel event dedicated to designers, agents and buyers of elite travel from across the Americas. This week’s event welcomes 265 exhibitors representing the most luxurious products and destinations around the world who will meet with 265 exclusively invited and fully hosted buyers from the Americas – a 20% year on year increase.

Urbanist Greg Lindsay began the event’s Opening Forum last night with a presentation entitled “Tomorrow’s World”. Identifying where the luxury traveller of the future would reside, he commented that although half the world currently live in cities, by 2040, 80% would be urban dwellers in both new and old cities. Greg, author of the book Engineering Serendipity, and co-author of Aerotropolis, commented: “When you urbanise, you get rich and when you get rich, you travel more.” He also observed three trends that would shape the future of cities: Hypermobility, Serendipity as a service and Rolling your own attractions.

Alex Banayan, recently included in Forbes’ “30 under 30” list and the youngest author to be published by Crown Publishing Group then spoke about “Success, The Next Stage”. Highlighting learnings from some perceived great leaders of our day ranging from Bill Gates to Lady Gaga, he said: “To get to the next level in the travel industry, you need to change your mind-set: we have much to learn from other industries.” He also observed that the new generation of travel is about selling ‘moments’ as opposed to specific experiences – it is the moment that forms the luxury travel memory. “The Millennial generation are willing to spend a lot of money and put themselves into very harsh circumstances, for the self purpose of having their minds blown”, he commented.

To conclude, Tom Marchant, co-founder of Black Tomato, one of the world’s leading creators of bespoke experiential travel explored his own experience of “Building a Business Through Storytelling”. He stressed the importance of developing a ‘culture of creating captivating stories to engage travellers’, also highlighting the business reasons of doing so i.e. building empathy and maintaining momentum. Tom also urged the luxury travel delegates present to look outside the industry because “customers compare experiences, products and services across industries - use that information to create your own opportunities”. In conclusion, ILTM Americas media partner and owner of Mexican publishing group Travesias, Javier Arredondo joined Tom on stage to highlight Black Tomato’s bespoke approach of ‘through adversity, stories are created.”

The business of ILTM Americas now continues until Thursday 1 October. 60% of the agents present are from the US, 25% from Mexico (the largest representation ever to attend this event), 15% from Canada, plus 10 special guests from Brazil; 85% of buyers are new to ILTM Americas and 50% are new to ILTM events. A total of 15,000 one-to-one pre-scheduled appointments will take place throughout the week, not to mention the many social networking opportunities that will take place.

Alison Gilmore, ILTM Senior Exhibition Director, also commented: “We are delighted to be back at the Fairmont Mayakoba for the fourth edition of ILTM Americas – September’s definitive luxury travel event. The creative expertise of the speakers at last night’s Opening Forum has really set the scene for this year’s event and we look forward to week of building luxury travel business and business opportunities.”

For further information, please see www.iltm.com/americas or follow @ILTM_events.

ILTM Americas, 28 September – 1 October 2015
Riviera Maya, Mexico
www.iltm.com/americas
@ILTM_events / #ILTMAmericas