Delegates have filed out of ExCeL London on 6 November 2025 as World Travel Market closed its doors after three days that delivered 34,082 scheduled meetings and forward contracts worth €12bn.
The final day placed marketing and future talent centre stage under the banner Reimagining Travel in a Changing World while every session echoed calls to turn resilience into revenue. The ITT Future You Summit opened at 9.30 am on the green stage where Kate Irwin told two hundred students that rejection letters once wallpapered her bedroom before she secured roles at three global agencies. Irwin shared “Persistence and one coffee chat can open doors that ten perfect CVs cannot.” Panellists urged applicants to treat every application as a networking opportunity and to follow up within forty-eight hours.
The Responsible Tourism Theatre hosted Jeremy Smith who used Kerala rice farmers turned kayak guides to prove tourism can deliver community income without carbon guilt. Smith shared “Tourism is not just about visiting places it is about making a difference.” He calculated that every euro spent on local guides returns 2.5 euro to the village economy.
The Technology Summit examined loyalty programmes moving beyond points to emotional bonds with Nadejda Popova from Euromonitor revealing that sixty-two percent of Gen Z travellers will pay more for brands that remember their dietary needs across bookings.
Popova shared “Rewards now come from feelings of connection not just miles.” The Geo-Economics track mapped rerouted visitor flows after geopolitical shifts and quoted accessible itineraries that return 2.5 euro per euro invested. LGBTQ+ travel sessions with Jenny Southan, Jānis Dzenis and Aisha Shaibu-Lenoir demonstrated that equity policies lift revenue with hotels reporting eleven percent higher occupancy after staff pronoun training. The creator economy session valued the sector at €230 billion and introduced Stay22 tools that embed user-generated videos directly into booking paths.
Four thousand one hundred fifty exhibitors packed stands while five thousand buyers from one hundred eighty-four countries completed diaries that spilled into evening receptions. The Marketing Summit on the yellow stage closed the formal programme with workshops on short-form video that converts at triple the rate of static images.
A closing keynote wrapped proceedings at 4 pm with a futurist forecasting gastronomy-tech hybrids where menus adapt to mood detected via wearable data. Attendees left carrying contracts, contacts and a unified message that travel rebuilds stronger when purpose replaces promotion. WTM returns 2-4 November 2026 with twenty-five thousand extra square metres already booked at ExCeL.
