Athens heats up the city break market

The city of Athens is hosting the biggest business event in the city break industry calendar, City Break 2007, 11th- 13th June. With the European city break market said to be worth over 150 billion GBP in 2006, City Break 2007 is the only travel exhibition dedicated to the short break and urban tourism style holiday.

The final line-up of exhibitors at the Faliro Sports Pavilion now totals over 200 specialist suppliers of city breaks from 85 European cities displaying their products and destinations to key travel industry decision makers. Exhibiting companies include Olympic Airlines, Electra Hotels & Resorts, Eurostar Group Ltd, Liverpool & Merseyside, Vienna Tourist Board, Holiday Inn Athens, Wonderful Copenhagen, Tallinn City Enterprise Board, RATP (Parisian Public Transport), Belgrade, Berlin Tourismus, Athens International Airport and Turismo Torino among others.

In the last month, several destinations have announced their participation as first-time exhibitors at City Break; including Thessaloniki, Reims, Salzburg, Ghent, Pardubice, Gibraltar, San Sebastian, Zaragoza, Bern and Toulouse.

Representation from leading world class hotels is also strong; to date 25 new city hotels have signed up including Hotel Katerina and Golden Apple Boutique Hotel in Moscow, Dom Carlos Hotels in Lisbon, Grand Excelsior Hotel Malta and Grande Bretagne Athens.

“City Break is the best travel trade show for meeting a large number of City Break specialists in a short time”, said second time exhibitor, Michael Jarvis from Visit Scotland.

Visitors will also have a unique chance to see a great variety of launches and innovations:

• Toulouse Tourist Office will launch 16 new products: 12 one day tours of Toulouse on different themes (seasonality’s, wines and casinos) and 4 evening themes. They will also promote their new Toulouse en Liberte, City pass and Short Break Toulouse Festivals.
• Marketing Manchester will present their new Manchester International Festival which will be taking place from the 28th June to 15th July and will be taking place every two years. It is a world festival of original works.
• Costavison Incoming Spain (Barcelona) will launch and demonstrate their new website, Costavision.es.
• The Mersey Partnership, will showcase Liverpool as a must see city break destination and will use the show as a platform to highlight the city as the European Capital of Culture in 2008. They will also launch experiential packages for trade and 2008 celebrations Beatles story museum to double in size.

Catherine Vaughan, Marketing Manager City Break, said: "We're looking forward to seeing the city break industry gather at this major event. It's a fantastic opportunity for buyers and suppliers of city breaks to get together to do serious business, set up new partnerships, network and learn about the challenges facing the city break sector now and in the future. The show is not only about information sharing, but also about rewarding the industry for its achievements and we look forward to the first European Cities Tourism Awards Gala Dinner to be held on the last evening of City Break".

City Break 2007 will take place at the Faliro Sports Pavilion from the 11th - 13th June in Athens.