Reed Travel Exhibitions, the world's leading events organiser, and the European Tour Operators Association (ETOA), whose 400 members include the leading inbound European tour operators, announced a partnership to build the profile and success of City Break, the specialist travel trade event dedicated to the growth of the city break market.
 
The partnership signals an enhancement of the City Break product, with ETOA being invited to manage and operate the event because of its access to buyers and its proven track record in running travel trade workshops using an appointment-based system. Reed Travel Exhibitions will continue to own and license the event.

Mark Walsh, Reed Travel Exhibitions' Group Exhibition Director said, "We see this partnership as an excellent opportunity for City Break to build on its success of previous years. With Reed Exhibition's excellent reputation within the events industry and ETOA's fantastic European buyer membership and experience in running workshops, City Break has an extremely promising future ahead of it."

Tom Jenkins, Executive Director for ETOA, commented, "ETOA is delighted to join forces with Reed Travel Exhibitions and we are looking forward to building on the existing event and making City Break the most important event of the year for European city break specialists."

The show, which is in its fourth year, will take place from 15th-16th June 2009 in Gothenburg, Sweden. Over 80 European cities will be represented with exhibitors including city tourist boards, accommodation providers, transport organisations, inbound tour operators, DMCs, city attractions and entertainment providers. Previous host destinations have been Helsinki, Athens and Belgrade.

Leif Nilsson, CEO Goteborg & Co, added, "This exclusive cooperation enables us to welcome the very best European tour operators to Gothenburg, West Sweden, allowing them to meet and do business here. City Break Expo also offers a fantastic opportunity to showcase Scandinavia as a favourite choice for the city break traveller, with good value for money at a favourable exchange rate."

City Break 2009 is a platform allowing key city break suppliers in Europe to meet with senior purchasing managers from leading tour operators and online agents for pre-scheduled appointments.

Buyers who have previously attended City Break represent some of the leading tour operators including Airmiles, Expedia, Gullivers Travel Associates, Jacob Online, Kuoni and Thomas Cook.

Frank Magee, CEO, Dublin Tourism and President, European Cities Marketing, concluded: "Working together with ETOA is a great opportunity to put in direct contact the European cities and high quality tour operators. I believe that such a development will be a real step forward in the history of City Break."