World Travel Market has launched a new 2012 mobile App, available now to download to all major smartphones. The App is an ideal accessory for all WTM participants before during and after the event, helping visitors and exhibitors to plan their time at WTM 2012. A key new feature is the ability to upload and input your own schedule by including pre-arranged business meetings and WTM sessions. 
The App is completely synced with the My WTM and WTM Connections tools on the WTM website, so any changes made on a computer or different device will appear in your App (and visa-versa).
Other key features include:
· Keep up-to-date with all the latest news from WTM
· Find out more about WTM Exhibitors’ developments and plans
· Learn about a range of travel industry sectors in the new WTM Blog
· Stay in touch with everything WTM on social media
· View all WTM Exhibitors, Events and Speakers in advance
· Navigate your way around the event with the map and route finder tool
· Have all the essential WTM information at your fingertips
Simon Press, Reed Travel Exhibitions Director World Travel Market, said: “The WTM App is a great initiative that will improve all our participants’ experience at WTM, by increasing the ability to plan before WTM 2012 and maximise everybody’s time while attending the event.
“The App enables our audience to know everything about WTM at the touch of a button. It will allow visitors and exhibitors to interact with WTM from their mobile phones and encourage increased connections between exhibitors and visitors, adding to the overall exhibition experience.
“The ability for this year’s App to be completely synced with the website, meaning any updates made via a computer automatically appear in the App, improves its user-ability and functionality for all WTM participants.”
WTM Speaker
Eduardo Santander, recently appointed Executive Director of the European Travel Commission, will address an industry audience at WTM on 6th November. This will be the first opportunity industry insiders to meet Santander and question him about what the ETC will be doing to promote Europe as a tourist destination.
The ETC is an independent non-profit making organisation with its headquarters in Brussels. Membership comprises the 33 National Tourism Organisations of Europe, whose role is to market and promote tourism to Europe in general, and to their individual countries in particular.
World First by Palladium Hotel Group
World Travel Market is also showcasing a world first with Palladium Hotel Group’s innovative biometric and Facebook initiatives throughout the event (from Monday 5th – Thursday 8th November 2012 at ExCeL in London).
Palladium Hotel Group has become the first hotel group worldwide to offer Paytouch, which allows visitors to its Ushuaïa Ibiza Beach Hotel to make purchases with the touch of their fingertips through biometric technology, giving guests and partygoers a secure, cash-free holiday experience.
In 2011 Palladium Hotel Group successfully pioneered live Facebook sharing. A first of its kind in the hotel, music and travel market, visitors to Ushuaïa Ibiza Beach Hotel were able to share their holiday experiences on Facebook in real time using RFID bracelets and totems distributed across the hotel. In just over two months, the hotel had in excess of 70,000 Facebook ‘likes’, and more than 2,000 registered users of the new RFID wristbands, of which approximately 90% became Facebook ‘fans’. Today Ushuaïa Ibiza Beach Hotel has over 176,000 Facebook followers and more than 32,000 followers on Twitter.
For WTM 2012, Palladium Hotel Group, in collaboration with Paytouch, is bringing a combination of the two technologies to WTM 2012. World Travel Market delegates will be able to log into facebook using their fingertips at the four Palladium Facebook Pods placed around ExCeL. From the pods, users will be able to update their status and upload pictures taken directly from the camera totems.
