A new report released by Pacific World, a global destination management company, takes a big-picture look at China's rapid MICE development and growing offerings for event planners events, aiming to help meeting professionals better understand this fast-changing region.
Introduced at PCMA's Convening Leaders Conference in San Francisco on Jan. 6, "China Destination Development Report: What's Ahead?" charts how the country's infrastructure investment, evolving tourism industry and technological innovation are creating more opportunities for meeting planners.
"With the pace of change and developments in China, we realize that many event professionals have limited to no information about today's China business events landscape," said Selina Sinclair, global managing director of Pacific World. "Through our insights reports we hope to help event professionals close the gap and better understand China as a destination, and to help them anticipate upcoming infrastructure developments to enable them to identify locations for events in 2023 and beyond."
The report explores China's rapid economic development and what that means for meetings. This includes the ambitious Belt and Road Initiative, a vast infrastructure and development effort to connect the country with opportunities from Africa to East Asia to Europe, involving 65 countries across three continents. Other economic developments Pacific World examined are the Made in China 2025 effort, aimed at supercharging China's high-tech manufacturing through acquiring intellectual property, as well as its ambitious sustainability goals of cutting carbon emissions, protecting natural resources, reducing poverty and more.
All these world-impacting efforts and China's growing economic clout are poised to reshape the business events industry, according to Pacific World. The report points to the Oxford Economics forecast that business outbound travel from China is expected to reach $100 billion in 2018 -- up 26 percent from the year before -- and is predicted to reach $212 billion by 2025. The report highlights how China now has 71 direct-selling companies, such as Amway China, that employ more than 2.8 million people and hold many large-scale events.
China's offerings as a business-events destination continue to grow, and Pacific World highlights several destinations for international groups where public and private investments are enhancing infrastructure and group offerings. These range from the well-established hubs of Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou to emerging destinations expected to grow into notable hot spots within the next three years: Xi'An, Chengdu, Xiamen, Shenzhen and Hangzhou.
To illuminate how fast the country's meetings' offerings are growing, the report spotlights its hotel pipeline, where more than 2,000 hotels are currently under construction. The cities with the biggest growth include:
| Chengdu | 124 projects | 25,560 rooms |
| Guanzhou | 122 projects | 26,105 rooms |
| Shanghai | 119 projects | 22,581 rooms |
| Wuhan | 111 projects | 15,457 rooms |
| Suzhou | 88 projects | 14,855 rooms |
The report highlights China's offerings for large-scale events, with such major convention centers as the national Exhibition and Convention Center Shanghai, Hangzhou's International Expo Center, Chengdu International Exhibition and Convention Center and more.
"What's Ahead" wraps up with a focus on the country's innovations in a range of industries, and the potential lessons they offer to planners throughout the world. These include the WeChat attendee management tool, public-private investment in wellness initiatives and rapid movement toward being a cashless society.
The full report is available here.
