ITCA and Reed Exhibitions are delighted to announce that Reed Exhibitions has acquired the ITCA European event which will be renamed World Travel Catering Expo and will take place in Hamburg from 27-29 March 2012, co-locating with Reed Exhibitions’ highly successful Aircraft Interiors Expo, that already attracts senior buyers from over 200 of the World’s major airlines.

The re-branded event World Travel Catering Expo will address the needs of food, beverage and amenity buyers across not just the airlines but also rail and leisure sea travel operators.

ITCA President Stephen White said “ITCA is continuing to listen to its members and it makes absolute sense to co-locate the biggest European onboard service sector event with the world’s largest dedicated cabin interiors exhibition. A large number of our members have for some years been visiting both events and even some of our exhibitors were participating in both events. We feel this will benefit everybody involved in the industry.

The Dubai show and other ITCA services will continue as normal. In fact, we are looking to increase the benefits to Members with some new initiatives that were discussed at our strategy meeting”.

Justin Tadman, Divisional Managing Director at Reed Exhibitions, added: “Reed Exhibitions has gained a reputation for its expertise in delivering successful events across many fields – including travel and the food industry – so we are looking forward to working with ITCA exhibitors and visitors to further enhance this event.

Acquiring the event from ITCA is strategically important and enables us to provide the travel catering industry with a quality event dedicated to their sector. World Travel Catering Expo will focus on the needs of travel passengers’ in terms of comfort, menu and amenities”.

ITCA held a 2 day strategic workshop earlier in the year, with participants including some of the industry’s largest companies and some of their most senior executives from Airlines and Rail Operators, Caterers and Suppliers including long time exhibitors. One of the main driving issues to emerge from this session was that the ITCA show and Aircraft Interiors Expo were overlapping more and more and whilst a number of participants did visit both it was felt that a whole week could be saved in their busy schedules by attending both events concurrently.

ITCA will have a presence at the event and the ITCA Board will now start to work on other strategic developments that will specifically add benefit to the Association’s members including the development of the Mercury Awards.

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