The Global Business Travel Association (GBTA) has released its annual forecast, predicting a record spending of $1.25 trillion on global business travel in 2015—a 6.5 percent increase from last year. The report is based on business travel spending data, which was collected over the past 15 years and encompasses more than 75 countries and 48 industries.
Business travel in China is slated to increase from $261 billion in 2014 to $420 billion in 2019. This data represents a growth rate of 61 percent, which is more than the business travel growth rates of the U.S., Germany, India, the UK, Indonesia, France, Turkey, and Japan combined.
“Despite recent economic speed bumps, China will pull away as the global leader in business travel over the next five years,” says GBTA executive director and COO Michael W. McCormick. “On the horizon, we’ve identified five nations that are also seeing extraordinary growth and could very well turn into the business travel markets of the future. Another market to watch is India, which is statistically where China was 15 years ago.”
Over the next five years, overall business travel will grow by 6.9 percent in 2016, 6 percent in 2017, 6.4 percent in 2018, and 5.8 percent in 2019.
More than 75 percent of total business travel spending is taking place in the U.S., China, and Western Europe, though Asia Pacific is responsible for the largest amount of spending with a share of 39 percent; North America falls in second with 27 percent; and Western Europe comes in third with 24 percent. While spending in the Asia Pacific region is predicted to grow by an additional 3.5 percent by 2019, spending in both North America and Western Europe will likely decrease.
According to the report, India is the most likely to achieve breakout growth, with business travel expenditures slated to reach $45 billion in 2019. The country could evolve as a top-five market in the next 15 years.
