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Spring 2000 Webzine

In this issue: Baglady Boarding Pass | Gadget Review | ITLA 2000 | LL Bean TRAVELER | Summer Sneak Peek

International Travelgoods, Leather & Accessories Show

by Lani Teshima

Page 1 of 2 [Click here to go to page 2]

Click on these thumbnails for a larger view. The Los Angeles Convention Center, site of ITLA 2000. All photos © 2000 L. Teshima Inside the Los Angeles Convention Center A bird's-eye view of the show floor, with Tilley Endurables in foreground. This photo shows about a sixth of the exhibit area. Silhouette, part of the Samsonite line Eagle Creek converts its booth into a "room" with an entrance staffed by greeters. Kiva Designs, with its open-air display area. Note their use of bold yellow, blue-undertoned red, and violet-blue. "The Next Great Adventure," the 2000 International Travelgoods, Leather & Accessories (ITLA) Show was held at the Los Angeles Convention Center February 26 through 28, and featured everything kind of luggage, from rugged adventure to designer styles. The show drew more than 6,000 attendees from 30 different countries, and showcased over 40,000 products by 350 exhibitors. If you have seen the movie Rush Hour with Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker, the large dedication ceremony held at the end of the movie was filmed at this convention center. The lobby is a beautiful, bright area with glass paneling reaching up along the ceiling. If you have never been to a big expo-type show like this, it is very easy to get lost among all of the vendor booths. Even with my extensive experience in attending conventions, I still ended up roaming endlessly, but mostly because I felt so overwhelmed at seeing so much luggage. Never in one spot had I seen so many backpacks, duffels, rolling uprights, purses and various bags in one place -- even moreso than the United luggage carousels at O'Hare! Each vendor set up their own display areas; the signage promoting such familiar names as Eagle Creek, Samsonite, and Jansport. There were also quite a few non-luggage companies, such as UniversalMAP and Zagat, who were there to exhibit their travel-related products. My first impression was that there were more suits in the booths than I see during lunch in San Francisco's financial district. It made sense of course: not all luggage is geared towards the rugged outdoor lover; business travel is a multibillion-dollar industry; and finally, the suits were either worn by the vendors (who wanted to look nice because they were busy working), or some buyers (who wanted to look nice because... well, I don't know). Let's just say I was dressed in the kind of travel clothing the vendors sell, and I felt kind of underdressed for the occasion. If you like Eagle Creek, their new 2000 line is really aerodynamic! In particular, check your stores for their new Latitude line of rolling uprights. You can see how it has its roots in the Switchback series, but the Latitude has graceful lines and manages to look compact instead of bulky. You can view the Latitude at their Web site, but only if you do a product search for it specifically -- if you don't know what you're looking for, you won't find any of the 2000 products easily because they seem to have chosen not to make a big 2000 introduction of their products online. It's a shame: their Web site has much improved since their initial launch (made months after print ads announced its online status), but still fails to live up to the quality, functionality and ease-of-use of the products themselves. Kiva Designs had a wide open, expansive exhibit area; a breath of fresh air for the claustrophic, since many of the other vendor booths looked more like a they were circling the wagon. I hadn't planned on dawdling there too long since I was already familiar with their merchandise, but then I found that many of the items came in a multitude of really nice primary colors. Instead of plain blue for example, they used a really nice blue-violet color that had good depth and saturation. The rep there was very friendly and eagerly showed me all of their Pico Convertible products (little pouches that open up into big duffels and backpacks).

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