MIA to host Airport Trading Conference

Between April 26 and 28 Malta International Airport plc will be hosting the 19th ACI Europe Airport Trading Conference and Exhibition which is expected to be the leading airport commercial event of 2010.

The leading message of this professional meeting is very much in line with the prevailing current global situation namely: "A new decade, new economic cycle, permanent revolution: Reinventing your commercial offer to captivate the post-recession consumer". The European Travel Retail Council is partnering MIA in holding this event together with the collaboration of VIE Vienna International Airport. The ETRC is the council of national trade associations and its members are the individual companies operating in European travel retail markets.

The leading speakers at this conference include Frank O'Connell, president, ETRC, John Holland-Kaye, commercial director, BAA, Joe Cappello, CEO, Air Malta, Tim Rycroft, Global Travel & Middle East corporate relations director and Friedrich Schock, CEO, APCOA. The keynote speaker will be Gerald Ratner - CEO of geraldonline.com and author of The Rise And Fall And Rise Again. Julian Jaeger, CEO of Malta International Airport, will also address the delegates.

The meetings' agenda will be tackling topics relevant to today's trends including recent impacts on airport retailing ranging from high profile security alerts, the single bag carry-on restrictions through to continuing threats to tobacco merchandising and the WHO's proposed ban on duty free alcohol and the industry's performance during the last decade, including its responses to the recent recession and ongoing security alerts.

The exhibition, which will be organised alongside the deliberations at the Mediterranean Conference Centre, will be attracting related exhibitors and some 450 senior level executives from airports, retailers, planners, suppliers and other enterprises concerned with the future of non-aviation revenue development at airports.