Big events can lift a country as a delegate destination to new heights - as the 2008 Beijing Olympics showed. Now, the mainland is drawing on the six-month World Expo 2010 in Shanghai to raise that profile even higher.
One of the strategies being adopted is to treat the expo as the voice of tourism and build a new image for Shanghai. 'The event has given birth to new Mice sites, as well as luxury hotels such as Peace Hotel by Fairmont, and the makeover of our transportation infrastructure,' says Patrick Chen Ping, deputy director of Shanghai Municipal Tourism Administration's international tourism promotion department. 'This has helped capture global attention to our new development here.' Because of the expo, Chen says many corporate events, incentives and meetings groups flocked to Shanghai with companies flying staff from as far away as Brazil to visit national pavilions.
The city's efforts have paid dividends. 'Last May, we won an International Congress and Convention Association meeting to be held in November 2013,' Chen says. 'Incentive wise, the potential keeps growing with improved infrastructure, and an 8,000-person group from Amway Japan is confirmed for the end of 2011.'
The spin-offs from the expo for incentive trips and business meetings has also impressed corporate travel management company Hogg Robinson Group. 'Most of our corporate clients around the world are organising more activities during the period,' says James Stevenson, executive vice-president for Asia-Pacific. 'Corporates are utilising Shanghai as the city to hold many of their activities, some of which are held in the pavilions of the expo. Corporates also work with the organisers of the Shanghai World Expo to facilitate special entry and overcome crowd issues.'
Statistics from the Shanghai Municipal Tourism Administration indicate a 61.2 per cent increase in travellers to Shanghai in June this year, with average room occupancy at 85.23 per cent - an increase of 26.46 per cent.
'With the proximity of Beijing to Shanghai, there is a spillover from the World Expo as visitors to Shanghai are also interested to visit the capital city of China,' Stevenson says. 'This is especially so for long-haul travellers from the United States and Britain who tend to visit multiple cities in China.'
Hogg Robinson has seen travel volume returning to the pre-recession level of 2008. 'Business travel volume has experienced a steep improvement in the first half of 2010. We also predict a gentler improvement in the third quarter,' Stevenson says.
