Competitive advantages to be had from understanding the Chinese market: leading travel organisations and tourism officials active in the Chinese market will be congregating this year for the first ITB China, to be held from 10 to 12 May at the Shanghai World Expo Exhibition and Conference Center. The ITB China Conference will form a key element of the new B2B trade show. Co-hosted by TravelDaily, the 3-day event will dispense a wealth of up-to-date information relating to three distinct areas: ‘Destination’, ‘Online Travel & Travel Tech’ and ‘Corporate Travel & MICE’. Admission to the ITB China Conference is free of charge.
The keynote speech at the first-ever ITB China Conference will be given on 10 May 2017 by Ms. Jane Jie Sun, CEO Ctrip will have a CEO Talk with Mr. Philip Wolf, Founder of PhocusWright on how Ctrip will turn to globalization as a core strategy in the next few years. Ctrip was founded in 1999 and is now dominating the domestic tourism market as one of the biggest online travel agencies in China. Leading figures in the Chinese and international travel sector will then present papers on the theme of destinations. Speakers will include Mr. Rungang Zhang, Vice-President of the China Tourism Association, who will provide a glimpse into developments in China’s travel industry, currently in a state of upheaval. Eduardo Santander, Executive Director of the European Travel Commission, will look at ways in which the European travel industry might benefit from visits by Chinese abroad. Over ten million tourists from China visited Europe last year, with the figure set to rise by 9.3% per year until 2022. Appropriately, Europe is the official partner of this first ITB China trade show.
The second day of the ITB China Conference will be dedicated to online travel and travel technology. A panel discussion moderated by Joseph Wang, Chief Commercial Officer, TravelDaily featuring the panellists Steven Pang, Managing Director of Greater China Skyscanner, and Ning Ma, General Manager of Marketing Department, Yangtze River Airlines and Qianyuan Yin, General Manager, Zhejiang New Century Manju Hotel Management will look at how travel companies can cater to the increasingly diverse and personal needs of travellers. Cindy Tan, Vice President of Display, APAC, TripAdvisor will talk about the opportunities that growth brings in China’s Inbound and Outbound Travel mainly giving insights in the search trends and behaviors of global and Chinese travelers. They differently behave purchase their travels which leads to different types of content that drive business growth in China.
The third day is given over to Corporate Travel and MICE. Kejian Wu, Deputy General Manager CWT China, will speak on the business-travel challenges posed by China, a growing economic powerhouse. Professional travel services are in demand to meet the needs for compliance and cost savings. It has come to a point that international TMCs and China’s TMCs are competing against each other. A panel discussion on the transformation of the MICE Industry will be moderated by Lenny Jia, Founder & Chief Editor, China BT MICE. Speakers will include Crystal Zhang, President, UCC, Kitty Huang, Vice President – Customer Loyalty & Revenue Generation, Greater China, Wyndham Hotel Group, Dong Wei, COO, Shouqi Car Rental and Lei Li, Founder, Youli Hotel GSA will share their thoughts on the dramatic transformation in the MICE sector as traditional MICE enterprises are shifting from “exhibition” to “integrated marketing”.
More details at itb-china.com
