Arnie Weissmann:
The
Orlea
em
12
Starwood starts user-review site
Why fewer cruisers in Alaska?
National parks as tour products
Richard Turen: ‘P of ‘s
54
www.travelweekly.com
THE NATIONAL NEWSPAPER OF THE TRAVEL INDUSTRY
OCTOBER 31, 2011
[ PRICES TO RISE SHARPLY IN ASIA, S. AMERICA BUT SLOWLY ELSEWHERE]
Amex predicts biz travel costs
to parallel regional economies
By Johanna Jainchill
In 2012, business travelers will follow the global rush to the emerging
and developing economies in Asia
and Latin America, pushing up the
cost to get them there.
According to American Express Global
Business Travel’s recently released annual
forecast, business travel prices are predicted
to rise worldwide in 2012, with the highest
increases projected for travel to and within
Asia and Latin America.
Projecting the cost of air, hotel and ground
transportation, the report predicts that business travel prices will rise most in the areas
of the world that have the fastest-growing
economies.
Business travel prices are also expected to
increase in North America and in Europe but
to a much lesser degree, as many of the economies in those regions continue to struggle
and still face the possibility of a double-dip
recession.
Christa Degnan Manning, director of Expert Insights research for American Express
Global Business Travel, said that the predicted price increases in part reflect the backlash
created by companies having cut so much
travel during the recession.
“Companies … need to get people back on
the road to win business, particularly where
it’s winnable, which is in emerging markets,”
Manning said. Those markets, she added, are
often far from traditional Western centers,
and many are cultures that place a premium
on doing business face to face.
See FORECAST on Page 56
In China’s middle class, cruise lines
see a profitable new source market
MAGELLAN
AWARDS 2011
PAGE
27
By Donna Tunney
Cruise lines are knocking harder on China’s
door, knowing that if they can tempt even a
sliver of its massive population into embracing vacations at sea, the rewards promise to
be substantial.
al marketing and onboard embellishments
designed to attract Chinese nationals who
have the money and the inclination to travel.
A handful of lines
are already committed
to tapping into China
as a source market.
Whether 70 million or 300
million in number, a consum-
er market that offers tanta-
lizing growth opportunity.
Their plans are still
being developed, but
as China’s middle-and upper-income
classes continue to
grow within the country’s population of 1.34
billion, the chances of eventual success seem
good.
The number of millionaire households in
China is estimated at 1.1 million, up from
around 400,000 just five years ago. But it is
the burgeoning middle class that these mass-market and premium
cruise lines believe
will fill their ships.
Experts disagree
about the size of China’s middle class, but
with estimates ranging from 70 million
to 300 million, the
potential for consumer sales is huge enough
to go around. And around.
Star Cruises, Costa Cruises and Royal
Caribbean International, all pioneers in the
China source market, have been making con-
siderable investments in deployment, region-
The experts also disagree about what
income level defines China’s middle class
and whether those consumers have the dis-
cretionary income to spend on cruising,
See CHINA on Page 16
