By Catherine N. Pillas
S8 Exhibition Inc. is eyeing revenues coming from the luxury-travel market to reach as much as P7 billion in three to five years through its premium travel and tourism exhibition, the Asia Premium Travel Mart (APTM) said.
The APTM is a business-to-business travel and tourism expo focusing on encouraging inbound tourist destinations, specifically boosting interest in high-end, luxury tourism in the Philippines
The travel-exhibit organizer said it is gunning to increase the revenue contribution of luxury travelers, instead of concentrating on the volume of inbound tourists, setting an aspirational target to boost the revenues from this segment to the range of P5 billion to P7 billion over the next three to five years. The APTM targeted revenues from its luxury travelers at P770 million in 2014.
APTM Spokesman Edwin L. Villanueva said these luxury travelers are the primary focus of its APTM event, now on its second year.
“The definition of a luxury traveler is one who has a per-capita spending of P70,000, which is 50 percent higher than the per-capita spending of the average traveler over an average stay of nine days,” Villanueva said, quoting data from the Department of Tourism
The APTM representative said the P5 billion to P7 billion in revenues the company is targeting for the year would come from a headcount of 100,000 luxury travelers it is aiming to draw in via the travel mart.
The targeted big spenders are those from China, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore, given the high- purchasing power of travelers from these countries. From the trade expo’s first edition last year, top luxury destinations in the country are still Boracay, Palawan and Bohol. The APTM will be gathering 200 premium travel and tour buyers and sellers from June 21 to 23. These will include the country’s high-end hotels, resorts and destinations.