Asia Pacific tops business travel spending

This is according to the Global Business Travel Association (GBTA) that unveiled the figures from its Business Travel Index (BTI) outlook report at ITB Asia 2014 in Singapore this week. 

The event features 750 exhibitors from 76 countries and regions. Exhibitors showing a strong presence this year included the Spain Tourism Board and Brand USA. The Philippines Tourism Board and Indonesia’s flag carrier, Garuda Indonesia, increased booth space by 200 per cent and 300 per cent respectively. This year has also seen the strongest buyer participation to date, with 14 per cent more buyers compared to 2013. 

The MICE (meetings, incentives, conferences, exhibitions) sector, in particular, is seeing exceptional growth, accounting for more than half of the total business-travel market. It is a very resilient segment that is outpacing traditional corporate travel. The dramatic progress of Asia’s travel and tourism markets, fuelled by the rising BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) economies, testifies once again to the region’s immense potential for growth. 

The GBTA’s BTI study also forecasts that China will overtake the US as the world’s No 1 business-travel market by 2016 and other Asia-Pacific countries such as India and Indonesia will grow by 11-14 per cent annually over the next five years. In the Asia-Pacific, there are a number of countries showing high growth in terms of business-travel spending. These markets include Vietnam, the Philippines, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. These markets are expected to see average annual growth rate of 7.5-10 per cent.