It is predicted that China will also become the biggest domestic travel market by 2017, driven largely by rapidly increasing GDP, rising employment levels and higher consumer spending.

　　The global travel industry is poised for a period of sustained growth over the next decade, driven in part by China’s share of global outbound travel reaching as much as 20% by 2023, a new report on global travel trends reveals.

　　Shaping the Future of Travel: Macro trends driving industry growth over the next decade predicts an optimistic macro-economic outlook for global travel over the next 10 years, with the industry projected to outstrip global GDP by some 2%; growing 5.4% per annum. Moreover, global travel is now set to grow at a significantly faster rate than during the financial crisis, where growth was just 4.1% per annum.

　　At the same time, China’s growth in outbound travel, which as recently as 2005 stood at just 1%, will enable it to overtake the U.S to become the world’s largest outbound travel market this year, with the number of Chinese households able to afford overseas travel set to more than double in the next 10 years.

　　China will also become the biggest domestic travel market by 2017, driven largely by rapidly increasing GDP, rising employment levels and higher consumer spending.

　　However, the report indicates that growth will not be exclusive to China, with forecasts showing that other large emerging markets such as Russia, Brazil, India, Indonesia and Turkey will each also average more than 5% annual growth over the next 10 years. This will be driven largely by rising wealth and changing consumer habits.

　　Written by Oxford Economics, the world leader in global forecasting and quantitative analysis for business and government, and commissioned by Amadeus, the study draws on detailed macro-economic modelling as well as qualitative interviews with industry experts, to forecast a wide range of future trends, including pockets of growth and opportunity that will shape the next decade of travel.

　　“Forecasts predict a new golden era for travel, which will be welcome news for many segments of the industry that are only just beginning to emerge from recession” said Holger Taubmann, SVP Distribution, Amadeus. “However, as the complexities in the business travel market clearly demonstrate, growth will be far from evenly distributed and there are likely to be both winners and losers.”

　　Some of the report’s key findings include:

　　Asia-Pacific will be the fastest growing region over the next decade, with visitor flows for Asia forecast to grow at an annual average rate of 15.1%, nearly double the prior ten-year period (2002 – 2012).

　　Asia-Pacific will also overtake Europe to dominate global outbound travel spend by 2023, with travel spend in the region forecast to increase at an annual rate of 18% over the next ten years. By 2023, Asia Pacific outbound travel spend will reach US752.8billion, making up 40% of the world’s total.

　　Business travel will bounce back as links between East and West stimulate new demand, but western short-haul business travel will not reach pre-2008 levels until 2018. Asia will account for 55% of global business travel growth in the next ten years. North East Asia alone will account for 42% of the growth in global outbound business travel expenditure over the next decade, with South East Asia accounting for a further 13%.