TFWA President Erik Juul-Mortensen gives his review of the TFWA World Exhibition and Conference which took place in Cannes two weeks ago.

As previously reported a total of 6,558 visitors from 3,026 companies attended TFWA World Exhibition & Conference 2015, which ran from Sunday 18th to Friday 23rd October, compared with 6,701 visitors (-2%) from 3,105 companies (-3%) last year.

Of the total, 2,183 people (33%) were key buyers – duty free & travel retail operators and landlords of airports, airlines, ferry, cruise, border and downtown concerns – up +2% on the previous year’s figure of 2,132, from 643 companies vs 618 in 2014 (+4%).

Adding the 2,401 agents and distributors (1,145 companies) to this figure produces a total of 4,584 (1,788 companies) of the most influential trade executives in the industry who were present at this year’s event.