At the first ITB China last week, in Shanghai, 10,000 visitors discussed Chinese tourism trends.
The Blacklane team was an official VIP Shuttle provider and hosted meeting rooms on wheels. Three brand new Mercedes V260 vans were open for attendees to have private meetings all three days.
From our meetings with corporate travel managers and travel buyers, three key themes emerged:
- China outbound travel is booming and travelers are demanding high-quality mobility solutions around the world. Travelers value consistent standards, fully licensed drivers and cars, and price certainty.
- Professional drivers are seeking global partners. The rising economy in China is bringing unprecedented volumes of inbound travelers, too. As in other parts of the world, drivers have built successful local customer bases, but find it challenging to reach global travelers arriving in their cities.
- Growing business with Chinese travelers means expanding a company’s services, payment methods, communication channels and more. China has a unique ecosystem of tools and products, in travel and beyond, that people use on a daily basis.
We are excited about what the future holds for travel in China and the entire Asia-Pacific region. ITB China 2017 was a fantastic event, and we enjoyed meeting so many travel industry and driver partners. To those we didn’t meet, feel free to write our APAC Market Development Manager, Mengzhi Guo at mengzhi.guo
