ILTM Asia, 2 – 5 June 2014,
Shanghai
@ILTM_events / #ILTMAsia
Martin
Jacques, author of ”When China Rules the World”, - took to the
stage at the eighth edition of ILTM (International Luxury Travel
Market) Asia yesterday, for the event’s Opening Forum in Shanghai
and observed that by the year 2030,
the Chinese economy will be over twice the size of the European
Union, plus the Indian and US economies combined. Tourism was also
cited as the leading leisure pursuit for China’s wealthy. Mr
Jacques commented:
“China
is also going to change the world politically, culturally and
socially, producing
more than a third of the world’s GDP and 20% of the global
population by 2030.”
As
the first feature event for ILTM Asia 2014 – the leading luxury
travel industry event for the Asia Pacific region - the Opening Forum
also introduced author and journalist Nury Vittachi, who urged the
luxury travel brands present to “Find
your story: add characters, add emotion, add details, add
narrative…add power”.
Jason Ge, Vice-President
of China’s leading social networking platform, Weibo
also addressed the audience of hosted luxury travel buyers and
exhibitors in the packed auditorium, commenting
that “Social
media has become the number one decisive factor for Chinese tourists’
buying decisions today.”
The
popular ‘Meet the Editors’ session was moderated by Peter
Greenberg of CBS News and featured the editors of Conde Nast
Travelers India and China, Travel + Leisures US and SE Asia and
Australia’s Luxury Travel Bible.
The
editors highlighted what inspires them: “real stories behind the
facts and figures” (Hilary Doling, Luxury Travel Bible, Australia),
“stories that are bold and ‘push the envelope’” (Divia Thani,
Conde Nast Traveller India) and “customisation and very visual
stories,” (Sarah Spagnolo, Travel + Leisure US). Yan Xiao, editor
of Conde Nast Traveller China added that she seeks the “different
and the unknown to both inspire her readers and offer them practical
advice” and Chris Kucway, Travel + Leisure SE Asia added that
‘personalisation of the pitch is key to being noticed.”
ILTM’s
Senior Exhibition Director, Alison Gilmore commented:
“This
was a great start to the eighth ILTM Asia. We were delighted by the
attendance, but most importantly by the quality of the speakers with
such a diverse range of relevant expertise for the luxury travel
industry: how to understand our target markets, as well as inspire,
engage and build long term business across the Asia-Pacific region.”
Following
the ILTM Asia Opening Forum, luxury travel experiences from across
the world will
meet in one-to-one mutually matched appointments with almost 500
high-end travel agents from 21 countries across Asia,
each
specialising in creating and planning luxury travel for their high
net worth clients.
ILTM
Asia continues at the Shanghai Exhibition Centre and closes at 5pm on
Thursday 5 June. For further information, please see
www.iltm.com/asia
or follow @ILTM_events.
