Czech
IT & CM China 2013: more Chinese buyers
By Zuzana Adamson
Since 2007, the IT & CM trade fair, at Shanghai World Expo Exhibition Convention Centre has established itself as one of China’s premier MICE events. This year’s show with its traditional slogan “Promoting China to the World and the World to China,” between April 17 and 19, was no exception.
This year’s show revealed many important new trends. The most important one? The number of Chinese buyers has increased, reaching some 65 pourcent of all the invited buyers. It also became clear that Chinese buyers are increasingly interested in diverse MICE destinations. As the power of “achat” grows, buyers are more likely to organize MICE events for Chinese clietns abroad. For these reasons we can easily envision new international destinations such as Brussels, Los Angeles or the Philippines extending the welcome mat to Chinese MICE groups. In addition, we predict strong growth in Chinese cities as Dalian, Guilin and Xiamen.
International buyers representing 37 countries were in abundance at the show, with the largest delegations coming from India (12 people), Ukraine (10), Australia (9) and Singapore (9). Efforts by event organisers to have consistently new buyers paid off, with a 60 % new buyers of all the hosted delegates.
IT & CM China 2013 welcomed about 3,000 professionals, including DMC’s, PCO’s, corporate travel and associations, buyers and media delegates. The number of exhibitors was 700. Hosted delegates numbered more than 400 and the number of business meetings reached some 10,000.
The organisers revealed that more flexible and taylored program help greatly in encouraging local buyers to participate. The show’s educational component April 18 focused exclusively on Association Meetings, with April 19 dedicated to Corporate Travel. Each day’s program included a keynote address and forums with renowned experts in their respective fields. Participants included the MCI Group, the Australasian Society of Association Executive (AuSAE), the Canadian Society of Association Executives (CSAE), the American Society of Association Executives (ASAE), among many others.
