Following the success of last year’s inaugural China Meetings Summit at EIBTM, the world’s economic power house will once again bring a number of experts from the region’s meetings industry to discuss the growth and movement of inbound and outbound business plus the concerns and opportunities that face the China market.

This year’s IBTM Global Industry Research presented at CIBTM 2012 revealed that destinations being used outside China are mainly in Asia but already there are significant numbers of meetings going to Europe, the US and Australia and this is likely to increase in future. 72 per cent of buyers said they were looking at new destinations in the next 12 months.

When considering the buyers’ top 10 countries of choice for holding events in Asia, China was most popular with 62% of all participants selecting it as the most used destination. Hong Kong followed with 45.5 per cent and 35.9 per cent of respondents selected Thailand.

This highly interactive session incorporate the findings from the research presented by Sally Greenhill, Managing Director, The Right Solution.  Other speakers will include Ping Liu, CEO Star Professionals, Shen Changhui, Executive President, China Science Resources, Technology Trading Corporation, Patrick Chen, Shanghai Tourism Bureau and Jenny Salsbury, Senior Director, International, China National Convention Center.

Craig Moyes, Reed Travel Exhibitions Portfolio Director, for the IBTM Global Events Group commented; “The IBTM portfolio of events includes CIBTM – the annual event for the meetings industry that was launched in Beijing in 2005. Year on year this event has grown and this year’s was the largest to date.  The growth is not only from international, local and regional exhibitor base but also from a Hosted Buyer and trade visitor perspective.   This year we welcomed the most Chinese Hosted Buyers seen at the show as a direct result of CIBTM roadshows to 2^nd and 3^rd tier cities which are increasingly recognizing the meetings profession”.

Other topics for discussion will cover anticipated growth for the industry, the development of the domestic meetings industry and the ways in which the local trade and infrastructure is helping to meet the perpetuating needs of a meetings industry which is expanding at an exponential rate.

Source: EIBTM