Universal Vacations Attend International PowWow Orlando May 2010

July 13, 2010 - PRLog -- In May, the Lee County Visitor & Convention Bureau (VCB) once again participated in International Pow Wow, hosted by the United States Travel Association (USTA) in Orlando. More than 5,000 people attended the trade show, an increase of 5 percent over last year’s attendance.

The five-day event is the travel industry's premier international marketplace, where buyers and sellers are able to conduct business that otherwise would be generated only through an exhaustive number of around-the-world trips. It is the largest generator of Visit USA travel.

Lee County Commissioner and Tourist Development Council Chairwoman Tammy Hall, Lee County Manager Karen Hawes, VCB Executive Director Tamara Pigott and other VCB staff members attended Pow Wow to market Lee County. Several industry partners joined them, including representatives of Universal Vacations, Pink Shell Beach Resort & Spa, Sanibel Harbour Marriott Resort & Spa and Outrigger Beach Resort. Olympian Nick VandenBrekel assisted the group in promoting the new Art of the Olympians Museum and Gallery in Fort Myers.

More than 1,000 U.S. travel organizations and nearly 1,500 international and domestic travel buyers from more than 70 countries participate in Pow Wow each year. An estimated $4 billion in sales were generated during the event.

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Universal Vacations has been in business since 1987 and we opened our first office in New Port Richey on Florida’s Gulf coast. Primarily we were offering Property Management Services to owners who needed their property looked after whilst not in residence. Through this we noticed a niche in the market for vacation accommodations, so we started offering these types of homes to guests as an alternative to the usual hotel or motel accommodation. This self-catering type of vacation worked very well with the Europeans and grew at a rapid rate. We soon started getting requests from travel partners and travel agencies throughout Europe because “We had a product that worked”. Now we operate offices in Sarasota/Bradenton, Fort Myers and Miami.
Over the last two decades we have built strong relationships with market leaders throughout the travel industry, such as Virgin Holidays, Thomson, Jetsave, Thomas Cook, First Choice, TUI and Chase Travel to name just a few.