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4 | www.travelweekly-asia.com COVER STORY: BUSINESS TRAVEL The first-ever assessment of China's MICE market confirms what the industry has already known – it is a large market and will likely get larger. The GBTA Foundation found a total of 138.5 million domestic trips were taken for MICE purposes and MICE business travellers spent a total of US$110 billion during those trips in 2014. And nearly 30% of Chinese business travellers expect the number of MICE meetings they will attend to increase over the next year. Business travel for MICE activity comprises 42% of total domestic business travel volume in China and 45% of total business travel spending. Shanghai (27%) and Beijing (25%) hosted the majority of MICE trips in China over the last 12 months, followed by Guangzhou (24%), Hong Kong (11%) and Macau (6%). These findings come from a new study, Market Assessment of MICE Business Travel in China, conducted by the GBTA Foundation, the education and research arm of the Global Business Travel Association, and sponsored by Starwood Hotels and Resorts. "This first-ever assessment of China's MICE market shows just how large this segment is in China, making up 42% of total domestic business travel and producing spend of US$110 billion – second only to the United States," said Joseph Bates, GBTA Foundation vice president of research. "The MICE segment presents a large opportunity for travel suppliers and we expect it to continue to grow at a rapid pace as China's economy expands." In the past 12 months, 86% of business travellers have taken a trip for MICE purposes in China and each business traveller spends an average of US$1,100 per trip. Chinese MICE trips last 2.9 days on average with the majority of trips (59%) lasting between two and four days. Nichlas Maratos, vice president, sales Asia Pacific, Starwood Hotels & Resorts, said, "As we continue our aggressive growth strategy across China, the findings not only help us better understand the nature and the size of the MICE industry, it will also help shape the future of our business." Other points from the GBTA report: China is the second largest business travel market in the world and is on the verge of passing the United States to become No 1 as early as 2016. While MICE business travel in China is not quite as mature as transient business travel – which is comprised of travel for sales meetings, customer support, small internal company meetings etc – it represents an enormous economic activity and presents a large opportunity for travel suppliers. The growing supply of quality meeting locations will help to attract additional MICE activity throughout China. The existence of quality travel infrastructure and a healthy supply of meeting venues that meet the needs of meeting buyers and meeting delegates are critical to China's MICE market. As China's infrastructure continues to improve, the market for meetings and events should be a primary beneficiary, GBTA said. China's transportation infrastructure will need to make significant improvements to be competitive with top tier MICE markets in the developed world but policymakers have them on the right track, GBTA noted. CHINA'S US$110 BILLION BUSINESS TRAVEL MARKET ON THE MOVE Market spend second only to US. WHEN IT COMES TO APPS, TRAVELLERS AND THEIR MANAGERS ARE IN DIFFERENT SPACES Business Travel News' latest survey-of U.S. business travellers who took four or more business trips in the past 12 months revealed only about half of travel managers realise how intrinsic to the business travel experience travel apps have become. Asked to rate the importance of a series of mobile travel functions, travel managers and travellers differed in their value emphasis. Travellers valued the more personal aspects of business travel: itinerary management, destination information and itinerary sharing were all on their top 10 list. For travel managers, functions like expense approval, access to emergency assistance and the ability to deliver travel policy communications figured prominently in the top 10. This result is entirely predictable, but another, more meaningful difference also emerged. Seventy-five percent of travellers said flight check-in was "very important," but only 58% of travel managers pegged it as equally important for their programmes. Taking all functions into consideration to calculate an estimate of the overall importance of mobile functions to each surveyed group, travellers' average mobile travel importance rating was 67. Travel managers' average rating was 39. That's a huge gap, and one that puts into perspective the 17-percentage point "importance gap" between travellers and travel managers on the simple issue of mobile flight check-in. The understanding that travellers may interact with mobile capabilities differently than travel managers expect is key when approaching mobile travel management. To expect those surprises and to be able to balance them with management needs is critical if travel managers want to engage their travellers and drive adoption in whatever mobile travel environment they decide to provide. It's also critical to survey travellers in order to serve different types within the mobile travel environment. In BTN's research, for example, less frequent travellers were keener on accessing destination information via mobile apps than were travellers who take 25 trips or more annually. Travellers younger than 35 years old were more likely to share itineraries and demand social connections while traveling. Frequent travellers, no matter what age, on the other hand, had little desire for destination information or social recommendation sharing. Rather, they wanted mobile access to upgrades and amenities at a heavier rate than any other group. It is critical to engage frequent travellers, the most difficult to influence, in the mobile travel strategy and implementation process, the study found. Image Credit: RawpixelLtd/iStock

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