Business travel in Asia Pacific, led by a dominant China, has outpaced the rest of the world, according to a travel forecast by the GBTA Foundation – the education and research arm of the Global Business Travel Association.
The Annual Global Report and Forecast, sponsored by Visa, expects global business travel spending to hit a record US$1.18 trillion in 2014, a 6.9% growth over the previous year.
Infrastructure investments, exports and service development has seen business travel spending in China grow from $32 billion in 2000 to $225 billion in 2013, an average of 16.2% each year.
By comparison, business travel spending from the US has grown at an annual rate of just 1.1% since 2000.
Currently Asia Pacific owns the largest share of the business travel spend market with 38% followed by North America (21%) and Western Europe (24%).
GBTA expects that by 2018, Asia Pacific will have gained another 5% in market share, while the US and Western Europe will lose three percent and two percent, respectively.
