NorthLink Ferries, which is the current holder of the ‘Top Tour 2009’ award from major operator SAGA Holidays, is to launch its 2011 Group Tours brochure at the World Travel Market event in London.

The WTM, which is staged at the ExCel centre in London’s Docklands from Monday – Thursday (November 9 -12), is now established as one of the world’s foremost business-to-business tourism trade extravaganzas. More than 50,000 travel professionals, senior management, buyers and opinion formers from around the globe are expected to attend the event.

NorthLink has successfully used the WTM as the launch platform for its Group Tours guide for the past seven years. This year the guide will be launched at WTM on Monday, November 9 when the company will once again be exhibiting on the VisitScotland stand.

This year NorthLink has experienced record levels of business from the Group Tours sector with a 65 per cent increase on 2008. Already, all major operators including Shearings, SAGA, Brightwater and Norman Allen have registered their 2010 requirements and Steve Nottage, NorthLink’s Trade and Groups Reservations Manager, expects the upward trend to continue.

He said: “It looks like we are set to break all records yet again. We have over 150 bookings held in house so far with many new customers gained and enquiries coming from Belgium, Germany, Czech Republic, Norway, Sweden, Italy, Spain, USA, Australia and Poland as well as the UK and Ireland.”

The Northern Isles continue to be popular destinations for “Staycationers” – those stay-at-home holidaymakers who have been put off by disappointing sterling exchange rates and who are keen to sample a holiday location which relatively near at hand but which offers something other than a routine, mainland UK holiday experience. To cater for this important sector of the market, NorthLink’s 2010 consumer holiday brochure will also to be launched at WTM.