The Year Ahead for LATA – A message from Martin Johnson

Personal highlights for me include the second residential LATA Expo in June, which hosted 3,480 meetings between buyers and exhibitors over three action-packed days.

It was a fantastic showcase for the region, featuring great events, inspiring conference content and providing a great opportunity to reconnect with familiar faces and meet new ones.

Watching 250 people dance the Macarena during the Monday morning opening session is a memory that will stay with me for a long time!

It was also fantastic to welcome Georgia to the LATA Executive Team as Business Development Manager. Georgia has already made a significant impact by attracting new members and strengthening our relationships with existing ones – and she’s only just getting started!

Our sustainability efforts have continued to shine in the sector, with 59 members completing the Strategic Sustainability Training in partnership with The Long Run – a collaboration I deeply value.

I am sure I speak on behalf of all LATA members to wish Megan all the very best with her new job at The Long Run, which she starts later this month. We will miss you very much but thank you again for everything you have done for LATA, and glad we will continue working with you in your new role.

It’s also been wonderful to see LATA and the LATA Foundation working ever more closely together, gathering real momentum with exciting projects and activities planned for 2026.

I’d like to take this opportunity to thank the LATA Committee for their time and dedication throughout 2025, including at a recent strategy day where we carried out a thorough analysis of the organisation and developed some fantastic ideas for the future.

I would also like to take this opportunity to express my sincere thanks to the entire LATA Executive Team – Danny, Katie, Megan, and Georgia, and Rachel for the LATA Foundation. They truly are the powerhouse behind the organisation, and without them, it simply wouldn’t be possible to achieve so much.

WHAT CAN YOU EXPECT FROM LATA IN 2026

A brand-new website: This year will see a complete overhaul of the LATA website, with a modern new look that showcases LATA, Latin America, and our members in a much-improved way. Exciting new features will include a dedicated members’ area, access to news, events, and key destination information. Once complete, expected around June / July, the new website will become the central hub for LATA that it was always meant to be.

LATA Expo 2026: Our flagship event at the new venue, De Vere Cotswold Water Park, is shaping up to be even better! With a full hotel takeover, a stunning lakeside location in the heart of the Cotswolds, and more space to create truly special experiences around the core meetings, this promises to be our best Expo yet. Buyer registration is now open and filling fast, so if you’ve perhaps been considering attending but not yet joined us, I highly encourage you to take the step in 2026 and see why this event works so well for everyone involved.

More networking opportunities: I was delighted to hear how many of you could join the team for drinks at the start of December. We will be hosting more of these informal evenings this year, and we’d love to encourage your wider team members along who don’t normally get to join our events. We also hope to introduce similar opportunities for our Latin America based members too. More on that soon…

New activities and travel opportunities: We’ll be introducing a more diverse range of webinar topics and workshops, building on our strengths in sustainability and health & safety. We are working on some fantastic travel opportunities for our members in 2026, I can’t say too much about that at this stage – but make sure you watch this space!

New destination training: We are delighted to partner with The Travel Hub Collection, as they expand their training platform to cover Latin America for the first time. The Travel Hub Collection is a comprehensive destination and product training platform for travel trade professionals worldwide. It’s FREE of charge for travel agents and tour operators to access. Find out more here

More frequent committee meetings: This will enable faster decision-making and richer discussions to help us develop and improve the organisation further. If you’d like to help shape LATA, look out for committee elections around the AGM in March.

Growing our membership: With the right structure now in place within the executive team, we’ll be focusing on attracting new members to strengthen our community even further. If you know someone who could benefit from LATA membership, please introduce them to us.

I hope you’re as excited about 2026 as we are, as we continue our mission to responsibly promote Latin America as a leading tourist destination.

With best wishes for a successful year,

Martin Johnson
LATA Chairman