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GBTA: China to beat US as biggest travel spender by 2015
China is hot in the travel industry this week, hosting two big corporate travel conferences and one study predicting it may outpace the US to become the world’s biggest travel spender by 2015.
Global Business Travel Association (GBTA) Asia is hosting its first regional conference in China, to coincide with TTG’s IT&CM China conference. The former is aimed at corporate travel managers; the latter, at meeting planners.
GBTA used its conference as the venue to release the results of its third semi-annual GBTA BTI™ Outlook – China 2013 report, sponsored by Visa.
If it continues at the rate it has been growing, China will overtake the U.S. as the largest business travel market in the world in 2015, the report predicts.
The survey found that China’s total business travel spending increased by an average 15.5% per year from 2000 to 2012, and forecast that it will grow by 15.1% in 2013 to $226 billion, and by 16.9% in 2014—twice the U.S. growth rate.
Domestic travel spend should grow by 15.2% in 2013 and 16.9% in 2014. International outbound travel should grow more slowly, at 13.3% this year and 16.3% in 2014.
While 6%-8% of the increase will come from rising prices, the remainder represents real increases in trip volume and spend-per-trip, the report says.
Unfortunately, the report comes just days after disappointing economic data showed that Chinese GDP grew at an annualized 7.7% in the first quarter, below the 8% economists had been forecasting. That, combined with a bird flu epidemic that has killed 60 people so far, likely will slow Chinese growth to below what the study predicts.
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