the Chinese corporate and incentive markets, focusing on theme events and experiences, teambuilding, corporate social responsibility and unique venues. And the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre has ensured that all relevant corporate material, including its corporate video and business presentations, are available in Mandarin, and has added Mandarin-speaking marketing staff to its team.
Regarding business travel, China’s business travel spending is one of the highest in the world, second only to the US. There is, however, considerable room for further growth as China still faces considerable supply-side constraints to business travel. However, action is being taken to address this issue and over the past ten years the size of the four largest airports has doubled and hotel room supply has risen in the major business centers. The GBTA has stated its belief that at the current prevailing growth rates, and with the increased investment in infrastructure, China will overtake the US by 2014 to become the country with highest level of business travel spend, one year earlier than previously forecast.
The GBTA BTI™ Outlook – China report predicts that Chinese business travel will continue to show strong growth into 2013, with total business travel spending forecast to grow by 12.5 percent in 2012 to $195 billion, followed by another 14.7 percent in 2013. One reason for this growth is the fact that, to address setbacks in its foreign markets, the Chinese government has purposely rebalanced the economy towards domestic growth over the past few years. This has been done through the introduction of fiscal stimulus, with an increase in infrastructure spending, which includes the Ministry of Railway increasing investment projects by 16 percent, for example. Domestic business travel has disproportionately benefited from these policies and in 2012 GBTA expects growth of 12.8 percent for Chinese domestic business travel.
Africa
Over the past decade, African nations’ economies, taken as a whole, have performed well and demonstrated considerable growth, albeit from a low base in some cases. In the past ten years, six of the world’s fastest-growing economies have been in Sub- Saharan Africa, according to The Economist. Angola, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Chad, Mozambique and Rwanda, all showed annual growth rates of around 8 percent or more, in that period. Moreover, according to the IMF, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Tanzania, Congo, Ghana, Zambia and Nigeria are all expected to be among the world’s 10 fastest-growing economies in the years leading up to 2015, with annual growth rates of between 6.8 percent and 8.1 percent. Agriculture, telecoms, mobile banking and healthcare are the sectors expected to show strongest growth in the coming years. A clear example of that growth is seen in the fact that the number of mobile phone contracts in Africa has grown by almost 20 percent a year since 2006, according to the Groupe Speciale Mobile association, which represents global mobile operators. It is significant that most of the industries set to expand fastest in Africa are also traditionally sectors of high demand for conference and incentive travel events.
Reed Exhibitions | EIBTM Trends Watch Report 2012 18
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