BANGKOK -- Business travel within Asia is growing at twice the pace of the rest of the world and looks set to overtake the top-spending Americas within 10 years, according to research by the World Travel and Tourism Council, a leading industry body, and Travelport, a U.S.-based travel commerce platform.
The research, presented at the WTTC Global Summit on travel and tourism in Bangkok on Thursday, shows that the business travel sector -- which accounted for nearly a quarter, or 23%, of all travel worldwide and was valued at $1.2 trillion in 2016 -- is set to grow by 3.7% per year over the next decade. But the strongest growth is expected in emerging market economies, with the Asia-Pacific region leading at a predicted rate of 6.2% in business travel each year to 2027.
