SINGAPORE | WIT-Web In Travel, in association with PhoCusWright, has sealed a marketing alliance with China's most important travel distribution conference, the 2008 China Travel Distribution & Technology Summit.

WIT will be held in Singapore on Oct 21-22 at Suntec City while CTD&TS will be held November 20-21 at the InterContinental Pudong Hotel, Shanghai.

Both events are opening two of the largest trade shows in Asia – WIT will open the inaugural ITB Asia (Oct 22-24) which last week announced it had sold out all 500 booth spaces while the China event will open the China International Travel Mart (CITM on November 20 - 23 at the Shanghai New International Expo Center.

Both events are also supported by PhoCusWright, the travel industry research authority on how travelers, suppliers and intermediaries connect.

“Last week, China announced it has overtaken the US in terms of Internet users – 253 million versus the US' 220 million. The numbers may not be as staggering in other Asia Pacific markets but one thing is certain – the rapid rate of adoption of the Internet by Asia's youths and the quantum leaps being made in technological infrastructure in the region are fuelling one of the most exciting phases in the Asia Pacific online travel market,” said Yeoh Siew Hoon, Conference Producer of WIT.

WIT is in its fourth year and this year will tackle the theme of transformation in the Asia Pacific online travel industry, honing in on “Ideas. Execution. Action”. Its speakers include:

• KP Ho, executive chairman, Banyan Tree Holdings
• Jim Donnelly, Pursuit Group Charlotte
• Philip Wolf, CEO, PhoCusWright
• Timothy Hughes, Commercial Director, Hotelclub.Com/BOOT – The Business of Online Travel
• Gordon Locke, Vice President, Airline Marketing and Strategy, Sabre Airline Solutions/Sabre Travel Network
• Richard Noon, Chief Executive Officer, Webjet
• Adrian Currie, Chief Executive Officer, Agoda
• Henrik Kjellberg, President Asia Pacific, Expedia Inc
• Robbie Cooke, CEO, Wotif
• Robert Bailey, president & CEO, Abacus International
• Brad Holman, managing director Asia Pacific, Travelport
• Azran Osman Rani, CEO, AirAsiaX
• Kathleen Tan, vice president-marketing, Air Asia
• Ken Mandel, VP and managing director,
• Yahoo! Southeast Asia
• Mike Buckman, president, Asia Pacific Region, BCD Travel
• Masabumi Mori , CEO, Ikyu Corp, Japan
• Suguru Tomizuka, president, Recruit Co Ltd, Japan

CTD&TS is organised by Traveldaily, China's leading online publisher focusing on distribution, marketing and technology trends in the travel and tourism industries. Its speakers include:

• Markus Keller, Greater China Sales & Distribution Director, Accor
• Fajin Hu, Senior E-Commerce Manager, Air China
• Yang Lei, CEO, BilltoBill
• Sara Janine Thorley, General Manager, British Airways, China
• Billy Shen, COO, Byecity.com
• Ji Sun, CEO, China Air Service
• Ningjun Li, General Manager, IT Dept., China Spring Airlines
• Min Fan, CEO, Ctrip
• Guangfu Cui, CEO, Elong
• Cyrill Ranque, Vice President, Partner Service Group, Asia Pacific, Expedia
• Alex Xu, Chairman and CEO, GreenTree Inns Hotel Management Group
• Tim Gao, President, Hainan Airlines Hotel Group
• Baojian Zhang, Regional Vice President, North Asia, IATA
• Hua Chen, CEO, Kooxoo.com
• Weixiang Feng, CEO, Mangocity
• Sandeep Bahl, General Manager, China, Northwest Airlines, Inc.
• Zhou Xin, Business Development Director, PayPal
• Tommy Tian, China Analyst, PhoCusWright

Registrations for both events are open. Early bird rate for WIT will end July 31. Book both events at www.webintravel.com and http://summit.traveldaily.cn/en/index_en.asp and Chinese: http://summit.traveldaily.cn/