8 Charts On Where Next Generation of Big-Spending Business Travelers Will Come From

While the U.S. and China compete for more inbound business travelers during the next five years other countries in Asia-Pacific will boldly attract more business traveler spending and rake in billions of dollars in the process.

The Global Business Travel Association (GBTA) projects that India and Indonesia will see the largest growth in business travel spending between 2015 and 2019 as the U.S. and China currently hog the bulk of this spending. Though China’s business travel muscles are bigger than everyone except the U.S., Chinese business travelers spend less per person on travel than most other major business traveler markets–less than $200 per person per trip.

Below are eight charts looking at the state of global business travel spending in 2015 and beyond:

Chart 1: The U.S. and China undeniably are the capitals of global business travel spending along with the U.K. and Germany.

Chart 2: About 90% of global business travel spending happens in Asia-Pacific, North America and Western Europe with Asia-Pacific taking the largest piece of the pie, but these three regions’ strongholds on business travel spending won’t be as large going forward.

Source: GBTA

Chart 3: When looking at this chart, it’s important to remember the 8% and 9% growth rates in 2010 and 2011 were due to some rebounding from the Recession so the forecasted growth rates of 6.5% to 5.8% shouldn’t be viewed as a warning sign.

Source: GBTA

Chart 4: China had the largest year-over-year increase in business traveler spending last year and Russia had the largest decrease.

Source: GBTA

Chart 5: China is forecasted to have the largest GDP growth between 2017 and 2019 (6.1%) of the 15 largest business travel markets and Italy and Spain will have the highest unemployment rates.

Source: International Monetary Fund, OECD, IHS Global Insight, Wells Fargo Securities, Rockport Analytics

Chart 6: Brazil, China and India will have the highest growth rates in exports between 2017 and 2019 and consumer price increases will be highest in Russia, Brazil and India.

Chart 7: Between 2015 and 2019 India and Indonesia will experience the most growth in business travel spend.

Chart 8: Looking at business travel spend per person, Europeans are the biggest spenders.

Source: GBTA