The world’s largest travel expo, ITB will be held in Berlin from the 5th to the 9th of March, will attract as many as 170,000 visitors from all over the world this year, including 113,000 trade visitors, and 11,000 represented companies from as much as 180 countries.
ITB will showcase the latest in travel destinations, travel products and adventure travel and a number of its participants could see some pretty high international roaming costs after the expo has concluded. In fact, thousands of dollars in roaming fees are expected to be generated during this time, which can make carriers happy, but really hurts the consumer. A typical user within the EU over the course of a week could expect to pay an average of £126.70 (Based on a usage of receiving 30 minutes of calls, make 5 minutes of outgoing calls, send 10 text messages and use 25MB of data a day with the leading mobile networks in the UK.) Perhaps not too suprisingly, visitors from outside the EU may have to pay up to 10 times this amount for the same service.
Visitors from outside the European region are “likely to feel the impact of high roaming fees.”
That’s where international carrier WorldSIM, who is exhibiting at the event, comes in. WorldSIM CEO Arif Reza sees customers staying in contact during the event as “vital” and says visitors from outside the European region are “likely to feel the impact of high roaming fees.”
“If [customers] don’t have an international roaming solution in place they should ensure they understand their data consumption before they travel,” the CEO said.
WorldSIM says it can reduce roaming costs for European visitors by about 50% and as much as 85% for those outside the EU.
The global wireless provider will be at stand 145 in the Travel Technology hall (6.1) with their range of money saving travel accessories. Visitors to the WorldSIM stand can get an award-winning WorldSIM travel SIM card for free, enabling them to benefit from free international roaming in almost 100 countries in addition to low cost calls and data.
It’s also worth noting that WorldSIM will also be giving away as a prize two of their yet to launch “top secret new product” that will hit the shelves by the end of February. We’ll have more on this secret here on TruTower as information becomes available. Until then, if you’re attending the event, you may want to make sure you bring a WorldSIM with you.