The Philippine Travel Agencies Association will hold for the first time a three-day business-to-business event that will run simultaneous with the consumer show during the 23rd TravelTour Expo (TTE) next year at SMX Convention Center.

Called the International Travel Trade Expo (iTTE), the B2B component of TTE became necessary to accommodate the needs of tour operators that want to do business with travel agents during the three-day show. Said Michelle Reyes-Victoria, PTAA president: “We have noticed over the past Travel Tour Expos that there were tour operators just going around there. They wanted to come here, meet travel agents, but they didn’t have the opportunity to do it because [travel agents were] busy at the B2C.”

She said iTTE is the PTAA’s way of expanding the travel show as outbound tourism from the Philippines to countries like Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Southeast Asian neighbors increases.

The organizer aims at inviting 100-150 local and international sellers and 400 Philippine-based buyers in iTTE. Philippine-based sellers will be limited to 20 percent of the total number of sellers to accommodate foreign companies, according to the briefing yesterday.

Buyers will be subsidized on a case to case basis. Although buyer registration will open to any qualified company, members of PTAA will be prioritized in the registration to become subsidized buyers.

Details of iTTE will be made available via www.traveltourexpoph.com