With the recovery of the China outbound travel industry and the reconstruction of the supply chain, the development of outbound tourism will usher in a stable and sustained recovery in 2024. According to the latest data released by the China Tourism Academy in early February, the number of Chinese outbound tourists has exceeded 87 million in 2023 and will reach 130 million in 2024, an increase of 85% year-on-year.
After successfully holding 16 editions of COTTM, the organiser recently announced that the 17th China Outbound Travel & Tourism Market (COTTM 2024) will be held at the National Agricultural Exhibition Center in Beijing on 16-18 October.
As the industry is aware, the China outbound travel industry has undergoing profound changes. Travelers are pursuing more personalized and socializing experiences, with the expectation of finding diversified and sophisticated products. Chinese outbound tour operators are looking to meet and do business with global destination resource suppliers, who provide unique, customized products and services. On the supply side, overseas destinations are eager to explore the demand and trends of Chinese outbound tourists and how to establish a higher level of co-operation with Chinese tour operators when providing products and services for the Chinese market.
Moreover, with the further boosting of the “One Belt, One Road” strategy, the economic, trade and investment exchanges between China and West Asia, the Middle East, Africa and South America are becoming increasingly frequent, and the demand for business and leisure travel between China and these destinations is continuing to grow.
COTTM – China Outbound Travel & Tourism Market 2024, with the theme of “Home of Unique Global Travel Products”, will invite tourism ministries/embassies/tourism boards, hotels, airlines, tourist attractions, travel agencies, car rental company, tourism project investment from over 70 overseas destinations. As well as welcoming 450 exhibitors from various suppliers of products and services for the China outbound travel industry chain, such as visa, insurance, payment, and technology platforms. As always, COTTM will help global destinations gain insight into the emerging needs and behaviour patterns of Chinese consumers for outbound travel, providing a valuable platform for overseas destination organisations to find partners in the Chinese market and for Chinese outbound tour operators to access overseas resources.
COTTM will further implement the China national strategy of jointly building the “One Belt, One Road”, by organising the “Outbound Tourism Investment Forum” at the “COTTM Conference” , and invite several overseas destination embassies/tourism boards to present their tourism investment policies and showcase their high-quality investment projects and development opportunities to the China culture and tourism investors.
In addition, COTTM 2024 will collaborate with Corporate Travel Community (CTC), a brand focused on the business travel market of Informa Group, to expand its business travel sector. Bringing together suppliers such as hotels, airlines, and destination management companies with business travel purchasers from automotive, chemicals, finance, IT/ Internet, and energy to further add value to the development of business travel in Asia Pacific and globally. Furthermore, Informa Group will also integrate more travel industry resources to support COTTM’s future development.
Qinghui Qing, Project Director of COTTM, said, “Since its establishment in Beijing in 2005, COTTM has been successfully held for 16 editions, providing an irreplaceable platform for global travel destinations and suppliers, especially for the long-haul and niche tourism resource suppliers, to connect and converse with Chinese tour operators, and greatly promote the development of the China outbound travel industry. To address the changing needs of the China outbound travel market, COTTM 2024 will focus on “new, special and unique” products. In addition, at the 2024 COTTM conference, we will launch a new conference segment – “Outbound Tourism Investment Forum”.
So far, we have received stand bookings from many tourism boards, including Kazakhstan, Pakistan, Thailand, Egypt, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan and Tanzania etc.
