exhibitions: CIBTM reports: China bound
China bound
At travel trade shows, the mantra goes that size does matter. The bigger and better the stand, the more attention and greater number of visitors you may attract. There is clearly more to it, but this is what sells and fuels the industry – from organiser through to contractor – and helps the visitor to see who the most serious players are. They are the ones who are investing the most.
Appropriate to the size of the destination and the incredible number of visitors the city attracts every year, The Beijing Municipal Commission for Tourism Development had the largest stand at this year’s event – also being a nod towards their status as co-host of CIBTM – and the second was Macau, arguably the destination in the world that relies most on Chinese visitors and the only place where they can legally roll their dice.
International destinations were well represented but it was strange seeing Switzerland (Geneva) and St. Petersburg Tourism with shellschemes rather than free-standing architecture.
Abu Dhabi and Dubai provided a strong front as visitors arrived at the exhibition, with two large stands on opposite sides as visitors entered the main hall. Dubai welcomed 152,075 Chinese visitors last year, up 41 percent on 2009, while Abu Dhabi also saw inbound numbers rise 36 percent.
Other notable stands internationally were New Zealand, Malaysia, Meet Taiwan, Philippines, Ireland (highlighting the absence of the UK), Japan, Indonesia, Korea and Thailand.
The importance of the domestic market was reflected on the show floor with 60 percent of CIBTM standholders coming from mainland China and 40 percent international.
I tried to quantify the domestic and international visitor market more accurately when I meet Sun Weijia, vice chairman of the Beijing Municipal Commission for Tourism Development. He shocked me with the numbers, explaining that Beijing welcomed 180 million visitors in 2010 and 4.9 million international visitors. That’s almost up 14 percent of China’s entire population that came to the city last year and easily makes it the world’s leading tourism destination in terms of total volume.
It is easy to wonder why they bother with the international market at all with the domestic market being so overwhelming and growing year-on-year.
Weijia commented that Beijing also has the most starrated hotel rooms of any city in the world. To accommodate 185 million, I didn’t doubt it. He explained that there are 778 star-rated hotels in the 3, 4 and 5-star rated categories with more than 223,000 beds.
I asked about occupancy and he explained that it is 40-50 percent across the board on an annual basis, or around 60 percent for the five-star hotels. Of the international arrivals, USA is the leading source market followed by Japan, South Korea and Europe, with Germany and France contributing most visitors.
Concrete statistics for the value of the meetings industry are always hard to come by, especially so in China, but Weijia was able to provide some indication:
“I have spoken to the main travel groups in China and their MICE arrivals are growing very fast, so every year they double the number. For example, CTS’ MICE revenue last year was around RMB1billion (US$157 million), CYTS was around RMB700 million (US$110 million), and CITS was around RMB 500 million (US$78.5 million).”
Japan was the destination most buyers are interested in for the next 12 months and they were represented at CIBTM with a strong delegation including Makito Takami, Director for MICE Promotion Japan, who conducted a press conference to reassure the Chinese on the nation’s recovery post-earthquake and tsunami. After Japan, the field is led by Taiwan, Australia and North America attracting very similar interest.
Of the top 13 international markets that Chinese buyers were interested in, nine were represented at CIBTM (France, UK, Germany and the Caribbean didn’t attend); while for the outbound Asian market, four out of the top seven markets are represented (India, the Maldives and Nepal didn’t attend).
For the domestic market, Beijing and Shanghai were out in force but there was a notable absence of Hong Kong as the third most popular domestic destination, along with some other major Chinese cities. Craig Moyes Group Exhibition Director for Reed Travel Exhibitions (the organiser) commented on this: “There is a lot of rivalry between the cities in China, but this year we received the backing of the China National Tourism Administration for the very first time. We are the only show to have this and in a very hierarchical society, political backing is essential. It has already helped us to get more domestic cities into CIBTM and will also assist us in the future.”
The show was 22 percent bigger this year in terms of space taken, with exhibitor numbers up 28 percent. In fact,
numbers were up across the board. An impressive 300 buyers were at CIBTM with 391 exhibitors, making the appointment schedule close to one-to-one and creating a conducive environment to doing business.
However, one message stands out about China wherever you go and whoever you speak to. That is service and professionalism. You can build the infrastructure and bring the best people in the world to China to help you, but consistent service and professional delivery takes more time, effort and involves education and in many cases, re-education.
Hosted buyer, Sharon Leonhardt from Traveltraits commented: “There are lots of challenges in this market and the only way you can keep guests happy is to micromanage every aspect of the process. You have to be here to keep on top of things or it all starts to fall down.”
Expectations on hospitality also need to be managed. “The hotels have good facilities but when guests arrive expecting North American standards of service for example, they are going to be disappointed. We try to manage expectations, but during something like a busy conference, delegates don’t have a lot of patience when things don’t happen as they should,” Leonhardt explained.
The industry research supported the sentiment with training and service delivery defined as one of the biggest problems to be overcome in the Chinese tourism industry.
Sally Greenhill, The Right Solution, who conducted the research, commented:
“This came across really strongly in the qualitative aspect of the research and the only way to overcome it is to retain and educate existing personnel, while also motivating young people to join the industry. At the moment, many of the best personnel are migrating to better paid careers in other sectors. They need to stem this flow.”
Beijing Municipal Commission for Tourism Development is aware of the problem and Weijia comments: “Education, training and certification are priorities for us. For education, we think it is very urgent for us to improve MICE management and integrate specialist courses into University programmes. Second, we need to introduce training for staff working already in the travel industry. And lastly, certification is important to follow international standards, so when you bid the clients know they can make use of global standards using the same benchmaarks.”
