Yes, according to a recent report by The Global Business Travel Association (GBTA) Foundation, the voice of the global business travel industry. This is interesting for anyone working in the world of business travel.
Massive growth
The report, sponsored by Visa Inc., used a number if indicators to predict growth in the Chinese business travel market and came up with the figure of 16.5 percentage points for growth for in 2014. To put it in perspective, this is in comparison to overall economic growth of 7.7 percentage points, more than double.
Growth should continue to rise in 2015 to 17.8 percentage points, equivalent to $309 billion USD. These figures mean that the Chinese business travel market could be bigger than it's US counterpart as early as next year.
While significant, the Chinese market still represents just 20% of the global total for travel and the total is almost totally (95%) domestic travel.
"The growth in China's economy has been unprecedented, propelling the country's business travel market to the second largest market in the world driven by real spending gains from rising business travel demand in both transient and group meetings and events," said Welf J. Ebeling, regional director for GBTA Asia. "Even facing headwinds as of late due to restrictions on spending in the public sector, domestic business travel spending continues to grow, and international outbound also shows some promising signs of growth thanks to China's improving export performance and improved economic performance among China's key trading partners the U.S. and Europe."
"In line with the findings of this report, we are seeing an increase in the number of corporate visas being issued to meet the needs of business travelers from China," said Jeff Liao, Country Manager for Visa China. "As they adapt to the increasing amount of travel, organizations are finding electronic payments easier to track for expense purposes and it's also a more flexible way for employees to pay for travel related expenses wherever they may be in the world."
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