Visit Wales, World Travel Market 2023 As part of a destination marketing and events team, I will be introducing you to the Welsh world travel market stand and what my team will be marketing. What better way to sell Wales than to introduce everyone to the national day of Wales called St David's Day. The significant day is celebrated every year on the 1st March where the significant flower of daffodils are spotted at every sight along with vibrant leaks. Williams, C (2022) states that all across Wales, parades and concerts take place including the eisteddfod, along with towns filled with the harmonious national anthem and flags flying high. Traditional cuisines are served and Welsh hotspots are filled with Welsh and international tourists to explore the history. With the 600 castles around the nation, to celebrate the authenticity of Wales, castles are free of entry for people to indulge in the ruins and character of the buildings. As explained by BBC (2022), a parade takes place in central Cardiff which involve thrilling performances, bands and theatre groups. Children also participate while proudly wearing their welsh costumes while engaging in traditional dances. The historical day commemorates the patron saint of Wales who is the founder of religious communities and the greatest figure in the 6th century, National Today (2022). So what is world travel market? As reported by wtm (2022), “World Travel Market (wtm) enables the growth and development of the global travel industry”. The website states that it gives businesses great opportunities to travel industries to learn about other businesses. Countries from all around the world join in with the conference to present to other global businesses what their country is offering. They do this by using intriguing and detailed stands to entice business consumers with each campaign having their own representatives of their marketing team who explains what they are offering from business to business. Carbonaro, G (2022) gives an example of the Saudi Arabia display. The site states how the Saudi Arabia’s exhibition was swarmed with journalists and photographers and “put on a show like no other country”. At the minute, the country is the fastest to grow in tourism with the stands displaying culture and diversity filled with traditional music and beverages. To represent Wales in the World travel market event in 2023, my team chose St David’s day due to how the celebration represents the authenticity of Wales and its people. wtm (2019) addresses the visit wales campaign and how they sold the nation in 2019. Wales has so many things to offer such as its 600 castles, variety of mountains and streams and its scenic views, travel trade (2022). According to Geography in the news (2022), approximately one million tourist visit Wales annually with Ireland, Germany and USA being the most popular visitors. However, this may seem like a lot but compared to England, their tourist rates exceeded to 40.86 million in 2019 in accordance with Statista Research Department (2022) and 150 million in Scotland stated by Doug (2022). The aim of our destination marketing team is to increase our tourist rates and acknowledge Wales as part of the UK as many countries doesn’t know it exists. Due to most of the tourists being from America, I’ve aimed my target market at American and European travel businesses who are looking to broaden their staycations, vacations, trips and attractions. Welsh stands in previous years at world travel market London haven’t had the best turnouts and tend to not be recognised or successful. This may be due to lack of detail and attraction, finance or publicity. We’re aiming for Visit Wales 2023 will stand out and gain attention and popularity with businesses and deals beings made and for Wales to be recognised. To create an intriguing and fascinating stand to compel a variety of businesses, 2023 Visit Wales will include a flower arch of leaks and daffodils as an entry point to welcome in visitors. To your right will be a welsh choir singing a variety of songs including the welsh anthem, Sosban Fach, Land of my fathers as well as a welsh band. Then, to your left, will be children dressed in Welsh costumes performing traditional welsh dances. There will be laminated flooring that include a detailed design of all things Welsh, while a large dragon will hang over people heads that shows a fire effect. As you walk into the Wales entrance another arch will be displayed which will be made out of cardboard with drawings of rugby, welsh castles and the welsh dragon. To end the exhibition trade for wales, a table full of Welsh food and beverages having businesses feeling comforted with some of Wales’ traditional foods. In order to carry this out, finance is important with budgets being set. Our team has established a budget of £1500 in order to get the best of its value but also making ends meet. To purchase a bunch of artificial daffodils to create our arch, 33cm long and 2cm wide for each flower, the price comes to £8.99. At least 10 bunches are needed along with artificial leeks which are priced at £1.89 each where 30 are needed, to create a balloon arch the total price will come to £146.60. Moving onto the costumes for the dancers, each costume will cost £16.50, while having 20 dancers performing it will cost roughly £330. Then to hire a band and choir for the day in two hour intervals to give them breaks, it equals to £500. For the fire breathing dragon affect, we are hiring an inflatable Welsh dragon which totals to £75 for the day. To keep within the budget, the second arch, flooring and food and beverages will be hand made by our team. We will make a design for both the arch and flooring, the arch is made by cardboard where the design will be painted onto to it. To produce the flooring we will be using a company to use our design and print it out on a laminate material, this over all cost is £8.99 per meter. The flooring will be 3 by 3 meters costing £26.97. Last but not least, food and beverage, welsh cakes will be served as well as leek soup, bara birth along with tea and coffee. An estimated 5,000 welsh cakes, 2,000 bara birth, a large bowl of soup and a hot earn for drinks. A budget of £150 is set to buy the ingredients of each cuisine. After all costs were worked out, the Welsh stand designs and performances approximately add up to £1,228.57, meaning we haven’t used all our budget and still have money left over for any inconveniences or problems that may occur. To put together and create this stand as well as it being successful, our team had to use AIDA which is attention, interest, desire and action. Attention was used to for little and big details of the stand which makes it stand out, interest is the information and approachability of our stand and staff that are selling wales and the event of St David’s day. Lastly, we had to create a sense of desire for others to view our marketing strategies in order to gain attraction. I also used a variety of the different P’s in marketing for the stand to be a success, product, planning, price, positioning, promoting and publicity. Reference list Williams, C (2022). Visit Wales. Epic ways to celebrate St David’s day. https://www.visitwales.com/info/history-heritage-and-traditions/have-happy-st-davids-day-celebration. Accessed on 11th December. National Today (2022). https://nationaltoday.com/st-davids-day/. Accessed on 11th December 2022. BBC (2022). St Davids day 2022: everything you need to know. https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/43240280. Accessed on 11t December 2022. Getty images (2022) BBC. St David’s day: Fresh calls to make 1 march a Welsh holiday. St David's Day: Fresh calls to make 1 March a Welsh holiday. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-60562540. Accessed on 11th December 2022. Wtm (2022). About World Travel Market. https://www.wtm.com/portfolio/en-gb/about.html. Accesses on 11th December 2022. Carbonaro, G (2022). Euronews.travel. World travel market: from Saudi Arabia’s stunning shows to Ukraines act of resistance. https://www.euronews.com/travel/2022/11/07/world-travel-market-from-saudi-arabias-stunning-shows-to-ukraines-act-of-resistance. Accessed on 12th December 2022. Travel trade (2022). Why choose Wales for clients. https://traveltrade.visitwales.com/fact-sheets/why-wales/ten-reasons-to-choose-wales. Accessed on 12th December 2022. Geography in the news (2022). Tourism in Wales. https://www.geographyinthenews.org.uk/issues/issue-4/tourism-in-wales/ks3/. Accessed on 12th December 2022. Statista research Department (2022). Inbound tourists visits to the UK 2002-2022. https://www.statista.com/statistics/287133/annual-number-of-overseas-visits-to-the-united-kingdom-uk/. Accessed on 12th December 2022. Doug (2022). Highland titles. Scottish Tourism statistics 2022. https://www.highlandtitles.com/blog/scottish-tourism-statistics/. Accessed on 12th December 2022.