The Arabian Travel Market (ATM) has officially announced the launch of ATM Virtual, a three-day event that will take place from June 1-3, 2020, and focus on emerging trends, opportunities, and the challenges which are directly impacting the tourism industry amid the COVID-19 global health pandemic. Danielle Curtis, exhibition director ME, ATM, said, "Our debut virtual event provides us with the opportunity to work closely with the ATM community and ensure we can support the travel and tourism industry in rebounding as quickly and efficiently as possible." ATM Virtual will feature comprehensive webinars, live conference sessions, roundtables, speed networking events, one-to-one meetings, as well as facilitating new connections and offering a wide range of online business opportunities. Sessions on the first day of the virtual event include, amongst others, Communicating and Building Confidence Now and the Hotel Landscape in a Post-COVID-19 World. Day two will include the Virtual ATM China Forum and Networking sessions, as well as Bouncing Back: Tourism Strategies for the Future, and Catapulting Resilience Through Technology and Analytics. On day three, the event will conclude with the International Travel Investment Conference. The agenda will also feature interviews with high-caliber aviation keynote speakers and a session run by Arival, focused on the rise of online travel agencies, the re-opening of operations, and what this means for tour and attraction operators across the Middle East. One-to-one pre-scheduled 30-minute meetings between editors, exhibitors, and buyers will also take place, while live video sessions will include Q&As and polls which will be run alongside presentations to enable audience interaction. A series of independently moderated, pre-recorded, on-demand roundtables have been designed to discuss emerging hot topics such as domestic travel, luxury travel trends, corporate travel, and tourism recovery plans. Also, key travel editors and leading travel and tourism experts will be writing blogs on topical subjects spanning not just regional but international industry verticals. Additionally, a host of hour-long speed networking sessions between key buyers and exhibitors will culminate in over 1,400 five-minute meetings that can then be extended into more in-depth meetings where a business need is identified. In addition to ATM Virtual, the WTM Portfolio has launched a new online portal, WTM Global Hub, which went live on 23rd April. The platform, which will provide content in English, Arabic, Spanish and Portuguese, will provide a range of webinars, podcasts, videos, news and blogs from key industry figures, providing travel professionals with information, advice, and support to cope with the current crisis and plan for the future. — WAM
