COTTM 2008 held in Beijing on 14-16 April hailed a tremendous success with an impressive 97% increase in visitors on the previous year. Over 3,000 professionals from all over China travelled to Beijing to attend COTTM, the only business-to-business event dedicated to the Chinese outbound travel and tourism.

In its fourth year COTTM 2008 was an outstanding 30% bigger than its previous edition, with over 250 exhibitors coming from 60 different countries. The exhibition has again proven to be the essential event for international travel organisations to introduce their products and services to the Chinese outbound trade. The show once more drew everybody’s attention to the booming Chinese outbound travel sector and confirmed that COTTM serves well to satisfy the demands of the world’s fastest growing outbound travel market.

Adam Li, Sales Manager of Emirates Airlines, commented on the success of the show for Emirates Airlines this year, "COTTM provides a very good platform for us to have a direct contact with local tour operators and the Chinese tourism bureau. With two years consecutively participating at COTTM we have successfully established more close relationships with local trade representatives. In addition, we have been able to identify more business opportunities in this market, which will help us improve our market awareness and develop further networks in China."  

Matt Thompson, COTTM Project Director, said, "The event this year has been simply exceptional. We have seen local tour operators and agents travel from farthest corners of China to be at the show and avail of this great opportunity to network, establish business contacts and set up contracts with a broad variety of international travel and tourism representatives. And I am overly pleased that both our exhibitors and visitors have had three very successful days at COTTM.

"The Chinese outbound travel industry is growing exponentially and it is set to surpass all expectations in the next couple of years. I am glad we provide this sector with an ultimate show and I already look forward to opening the doors to an even bigger COTTM 2009."

By the end of the show 50% of exhibitors rebooked their spaces for the next COTTM held on 20-22 April 2009. To this end, the next year’s show will see a further expansion of the floor space to accommodate this high influx of exhibitors and visitors.