exhibitions: CIBTM reports: Beijing steps up for CIBTM
Beijing steps up for CIBTM
Beijing Tourism Administration gears up for a greater role as the 2010 event is the most successful to date
The fifth edition of CIBTM was most notable for the increased interest and involvement of the Beijing Tourism Administration (BTA), which became joint organiser in 2010 alongside Reed Travel Exhibitions.
In the opening press conference, Wang Qing, director of the marketing development department for BTA, attributed the continuing success of the exhibition to the Chinese government’s attention to the high-end tourism market, especially the meetings and incentives sector.
CIBTM certainly had some positive statistics to shout about with exhibitor numbers up 20 percent year-on-year and a 30 percent increase in the number of buyers.
Qing ran through a list of the BTA’s efforts to attract a greater number of groups to the destination, including its participation in all the major associations such as SITE, PATA, ICCA and MPI; the authority’s active exhibitor participation overseas; incentives introduced to encourage events and exhibitions in China; and training initiatives developed specifically for this sector.
Further ambitions for the growth of the event were explained by Ms. Gu, deputy director general of BTA who announced that they expect CIBTM to become the leading event for the meetings industry in ASEAN within the next three years.
CIBTM was part of an expanded ÔChinese Meetings Week’ for the first time with associations and organisations including MPI, MCI, ICCA and SITE providing lectures, forums and training programmes.
The initiative was seen as a great success, with CIBTM exhibition manager, Jeffrey Xu commenting: “China Meetings Week has clearly increased the profile of the show dramatically, resulting in larger numbers of corporate Chinese buyers - key to the development of the show and its exhibitors.”
EDUCATIONAL FOCUS
As a developing meeting and incentive market, industry education in China is recognised as being of paramount importance and there was a comprehensive regionally focused seminar programme at CIBTM.
Seminars this year featured 20 speakers - 50 percent of which were international - to help satisfy local demand for knowledge on the meetings and incentive industry. These were well received with attendance to the 17 sessions up 30 percent on last year.
The BTA went a step further towards the provision of greater industry education during the event by signing an agreement with MPI.
MPI confirmed a comprehensive industry partnership aimed at supporting Asian MPI members, providing career-minded education and creating strong business opportunities.
FACING THE FACTS
The highlight of the CIBTM seminar programme was the presentation of the 4th China and Asia Meetings Industry Research Report 2010 presented by Sally Greenhill of The Right Solution.
While the research stressed a number of positives, such as the significant increase in the number of events held over the last 12 months and a projected increase in budget for the year ahead, it also identified several factors currently hindering China’s progress.
Economic concerns and pressure to reduce costs were obviously the most critical for buyers, but the second most important factor when placing events next year in China is passport and visa issues and meetme addressed this issue with the BTA.
Unfortunately, this is unlikely to be resolved anytime soon. Ms. Gu recognised this as an issue and explained that this had been raised with the relevant government bodies but that they had no remit to make any changes to the current policies.
However, Ms. Gu explained that Beijing attracts 167 million domestic visitors each year - an incredible figure that amazes, almost as much as the fact that Beijing receives only 4.5 million international visitors a year, which contributes 20 percent of total revenues from tourism.
Ms. Gu was quite frank in stating that the easing of passport and visa issues alone would more than double the number of international inbound visitors to over 10 million per year and judging from the overall contribution these visitors make, a significant economic impact would be felt for Beijing Tourism.
Efforts to attract the meeting and incentive industry will be continuing apace with a dedicated PR and MICE Agency being set-up by the end of this year by the BTA.
Ms. Gu explained that the current meeting and incentive budget for the BTA is US$1.5 million per year and this will be set to double or triple in the near future. This will include subsidies for the industry and enable policies to be put into place to further incentivise meeting planners to choose Beijing as a destination.
HOME AND AWAY
Clearly, the biggest opportunity for China in the short-term is business from the region, domestically as well as surrounding Asian countries, and this was reflected by exhibitors who were mostly concentrated on providing in-language communication to event attendees in Mandarin.
Discussion with exhibitors such as Jonathan Cohen from the Danish Tourism Authority, which exhibited at CIBTM, revealed that the Chinese outbound market is currently controlled by six or seven major players that are responsible for the majority of international group business coming out of China.
“The situation currently is that a handful of key operators are responsible for placing business in destinations such as Denmark. However, this is still a very immature market and we have to be prepared for when this might change,” said Cohen.
For inbound groups, China still has a long way to go in terms of service outside of the five-star hotels with an obvious challenge for non-Mandarin speakers.
TRANSPORTATION CHALLENGES
Beijing is renowned for congestion and this was apparent during the event, getting to and from the exhibition and also reaching external meetings approaching rush-hour.
Apparently time-keeping is an issue for any appointments where travel is involved and although Ms. Gu explained that group travel times can be cut through the employment of dedicated bus lanes to ease traffic flow for groups, this was not seen in evidence during CIBTM and is a major concern for group travel organisers combining meetings and incentives.
There are a number of attractions within Beijing, particularly The Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square and The Great Wall. However, travel to these locations can be time-consuming.
The 4th CIBTM China and Asia Meetings Industry Research Report 2010 can be found at www.cibtm.com
CIBTM 2011: August 30 - September 1 at the China National Convention Centre, (CNCC) Beijing.
