China International Travel Mart 2010 A Huge Event

Note: Roger Allnutt, Australian experienced travel writer, the columnist for CNTO Sydney’s website was invited by CNTO Sydney to attend the 2010 China International Travel Mart and do FAM trips in Wuzhen and Hainan Island, China.

Having just completed the very successful World Expo 2010 in Shanghai at the end of October where over 70 million people attended, Shanghai was straight into another major event with the China International Travel Mart (CITM) 2010 at the Shanghai New International Expo Center.

Shanghai New International Expo Center

Held over two days on 18 and 19 November for exhibitors and buyers and with two extra days for the general public to also learn more about available new tourism products CITM drew participants from all over the world.

The exhibition space consisted of 4 exhibition halls (with a small overflow into an extra hall) with a total area of 57,500square meters.

There were a total of 2243 exhibition booths comprising 1387 domestic and 856 from overseas representing about 80 countries.. Asia accounted for 69.3% of the exhibitors, Europe 16.6%, Americas 11.6 and Oceania and Africa just over 1% each. The major categories of exhibitors were travel services 27%, hotel and hotel management groups 16%, tourism bureaus 36% and tourist attractions 9%.

The total number of oversees buyers attending was more than 1000 plus a small contingent of journalists and travel writers.

In addition to the Mart in Shanghai the China National Tourism Administration hosted the Go China Summit at Suzhou on 16 and 17 November. The summit is the premier business-to-business travel conference of CITM exclusively selling inbound travel to China. Targeted forums bring together the world’s premier tour operators with suppliers of travel products from throughout China for individual pre-scheduled face-to- face meetings. At Go China Summit, China’s domestic suppliers and international tour operators participated in business sessions and post-event familiarization tours to regional attractions with the goal of showcasing destinations for future tourism business. I participated in a familiarization tour to Hainan Island, an emerging tropical destination off the south coast of China.

Overseas tour operators who attended the summit said they came away with fresh perspective that will change the way they package and market China. Buyers noted that their clients’ China destination preferences are changing to regions that capture the real beauty of China. Special interest tours are booming including culture, history and even bike and mountain bike riding as people want more experiential tours that give a deeper insight into a destination.

One buyer Robert Lyall, director of e-Travel Toronto said ‘it is an exploding market with so many new opportunities, like the Wild West almost’.

The Mart opened with a gala banquet at the Oriental Riverside Hotel in Pudong Shanghai on the evening of 17 November where visiting delegates were warmly welcomed.

The action moved to the Expo Center the next morning. The first day was very crowded with buyers milling round the exhibitor stands. Each of the different Chinese provinces and some individual cities had multiple booths representing hotels, attractions, tours and other tourism services. Many of the local Chinese stands were manned by groups of people sometimes as many as 5 or 6. Every time I approached a stand I was beset by exhibitors all wanting to press their product (and invariably wanting to exchange name cards). I had to point out that I was a travel writer and not a buyer and hence became fairly selective in accepting material usually only gathering material on elements of the Mart that I wanted to write about.

Many of the local exhibitors had members dressed in colourful traditional dress and/or had local people doing traditional arts and crafts like painting and weaving.. During the day there were performances by dancers from the regions – sometimes accompanied by very loud music. I was particularly impressed by the costumes worn by people from some of the remoter regions of China like Xinjiang, Gansu and Tibet and the costumes and dances from Shaanxi were colourful and visually dramatic.

traditional weaving from Tibet

colourful traditional clothes

Some exhibitors had roving people dressed up like clowns and mascots for their place. At the end of the first day I couldn’t resist photographing a young man fast asleep on a chair still wearing brightly coloured boots, part of his ‘costume’ Obviously exhausted.

end of a busy day

The largest overseas representation of exhibitors were from China’s near neighbours Japan, South Korea and India. The USA also had a large contingent with many individual states and hotel groups being represented. Apart from places like the European countries there were many smaller countries with exhibitors like Mauritius, Zimbabwe, Jamaica, Israel, Syria, Fiji, Papua New Guinea and Samoa. These countries are undoubtedly looking to entice increasing numbers of tourists from China as the number of outbound tourists increases along with the country’s burgeoning economy and increasingly wealthy and mobile middle class.

Both Australia and New Zealand were represented, but as far as I could tell the different state tourism offices were ‘represented’ by local Chinese which I found disappointing. Most of the other major players from overseas were represented by professionals from the country or business with assistance where necessary from local Chinese. There is a huge opportunity to attract more Chines to Australia especially with the increased capacity of international flights to Australia (and New Zealand) by carriers such as Qantas, Air China, China Southern and China Eastern.

The second day was less busy and I found it an opportunity for more relaxed discussions. Of course many private business meetings had been and were taking place away from the hustle and bustle (and noise) of the Mart.

As a travel writer I made a number of excellent contacts during my time at the Mart, contacts that I hope will translate into opportunities in the future to visit new places in China and prepare material for publication.

Related posts:

1. China International Travel Mart 2010 (CITM)
2. Day 4 – Morning and afternoon of Friday 19 November 2010
3. Day 3 – Morning and Afternoon of Thursday 18 November 2010
4. Thanks CITM 2010!
5. Sichuan International Cultural Tourism Festival, Sichuan, CHINA