Tourism & Hospitality | Sunday 1 March, 2015 12:33 pm |

Arabian Travel Market (ATM) 2015 has announced the launch of its new Best Stand Awards initiative, which will see a line-up of top judges and visitors to the annual industry event acknowledge the design creativity and positioning of exhibiting companies’ physical presence at the annual showcase.
The five categories cover Best Stand Design, Best Stand for Doing Business, Best Stand Personnel, Best Stand Feature and Most Innovative Stand within the Travel Tech Show at ATM.

Judging will take place on Tuesday 5th May 2015 with the winners revealed at a photo opportunity on the show floor the following day, and visitors to the show will also have the opportunity to choose their favourite stand with a separate award with votes to be cast using ATM’s social media platforms.
“This is the first year that we have publicly recognised the effort, investment and sheer creativity that goes into developing and manning exhibition stands. Our industry is a hugely ‘visible’ one and over the last two decades we have seen exhibitor presence evolve from simple shell and core schemes to full experiential destinations in their own right,” said Nadege Noblet, Exhibition Manager of Arabian Travel Market.

To support the awards debut, Reed Travel Exhibitions, the organiser of Arabian Travel Market, has partnered with a distinguished group of industry experts and design professionals who comprise this year’s judging panel.
The line-up includes Leo Fewtrell, Dubai Travel and Tour Agents Group (DTTAG); Fiona McAndrew-Sharp, TTN; Nick Hall, Digital Think Tank; Michael Hodson, acclaimed travel blogger; Bruce Martin, Ginger Juice and Diane Thorsen, Principal Design Director, Perkins+Will.

“With more than 400 stands throughout the nine exhibition halls and running the industry gamut from destinations, hotels and airlines to cruise operators and car rental companies, competition is sure to be fierce, the judges will definitely have a tough task on their hands and biggest doesn't necessarily mean best!” says Noblet.
The judging criteria for the Best Stand Design award will focus on identifying an eye-catching stand that has an unusual/creative design, and makes the best use of available space. It also needs to look inviting from a visitor perspective and have outstanding presence in the halls, attracting high levels of visitor traffic.

The winner of the Best Stand for Doing Business will need to create a busy B2B atmosphere and present a well-planned and easily navigable layout with a good presentation of the stand and its services rendering it a clear winner.

“One of the most vied-for award categories will be that of Best Stand Personnel, as this is the representative face of our industry and the value of having attentive, enthusiastic and well-presented staff cannot be under-estimated, whether it’s at a trade event or checking a guest into a hotel,” said Noblet.
Standout design will also be recognised with the Best Stand Feature award, which will recognise the stand with the most visual impact and good use of features to showcase cultural characteristics and draw in visitors.

The final award in the professionally judged categories is the Most Innovative stand within the Travel Tech Show at ATM, and this category was created to specifically highlight the importance of technology to the industry and reward those exhibitors with a tech focus.
“We also felt that it was important to involve visitors to ATM 2015 so we will also have a People’s Choice Award whereby we will vote for an overall winner out of the five category winners as decided by our professional judging panel,” explained Noblet.

The 2015 event will also build on the success of last year’s edition with the announcement of an additional hall adding an additional 2,000 square metres of floor space as Reed Travel Exhibitions looks to add to its record-breaking achievements in 2014. Last year ATM saw total attendance increase by 12% with 33,000 participants, from more than 131 countries and business deals signed worth more than US$ 2.1 billion over the four days.