IT&CM China and CTW China 2024 kicked off this afternoon in Shanghai, with more than 250 exhibitors, over 400 buyers, and 30 media representatives in attendance.
This is the 16th edition of both events, and the first in-person gathering for the annual series since the pandemic. IT&CM China and CTW China were held virtually in 2020 and 2021, and in a hybrid format in 2023.
Day one featured a keynote presentation led by Sun Weijia, special researcher of Counsellors’ Office of the State Council, who discussed the importance of government influence on the growth of meeting destinations.
Other guest speakers for the day included Hong Kong Tourism Board Beijing Office’s Zhu Jun, SITE China Chapter’s Lisa Xu, First Incentive Travel’s Joost de Meyer, and Beijing Zhongrunhua Petrochemical’s Yu Dandan.
Tomorrow and for the next two days, the exhibition component will commence with one-on-one business meetings.
Exhibitors hail from destinations such as Abu Dhabi, New Zealand and Sri Lanka as well as from Chinese territories.
The Hong Kong Tourism Board dominates in terms of pavilion size, at 222m2, followed by the Nanjing Municipal Bureau of Culture and Tourism (90m2), Malaysia Convention and Exhibition Bureau (84m2), and Department of Tourism, Culture, Radio, Television and Sports of Hainan Province (66m2).
In terms of buyer presence, representation from China is the strongest, at 81 per cent of total attendance. India, Singapore, and Indonesia buyers form the majority among international attendance.
The Lufthansa Group’s Green Fares has been well received since it was launched a year ago – with more than one million passengers opting for the new fare – and demand continues to rise steadily in all booking classes, underlining the success of this sustainable option.
Available with Lufthansa, Austrian Airlines, Brussels Airlines, SWISS, Edelweiss, Discover Airlines and Air Dolomiti on more than 730,000 flights per year within Europe and to Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia, the Lufthansa Group has also been testing Green Fares on selected longhaul routes since November 2023.
In the first year, an average of three per cent of passengers have used the offer, making an important contribution to more sustainable travel. In Business Class, Green Fares tickets are already selected for eleven per cent of bookings via the Lufthansa Group portals.
Green Fares are particularly popular on routes such as Hamburg-Munich, Zurich-London and Frankfurt-Berlin. In total, travellers have offset more than 77,000 tonnes of CO2 since the launch of Green Fares by offsetting their flight-related CO2 emissions.
Green Fares includes the full offsetting of individual, flight-related CO2 emissions by sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) as well as a contribution to high-quality climate protection projects. With SAF, a reduction of 20 per cent of CO2 emissions is achieved, while the remaining 80 per cent is compensated by climate protection projects. The Lufthansa Group ensures that the amount of SAF required for offsetting is fed into the airport infrastructure within six months of purchase.
The Lufthansa Group’s CO2 compensation portfolio currently comprises 15 projects, including two technology-based projects.
Currently, around four per cent of Lufthansa Group passengers use one of the various offers for more sustainable flying. Passengers can either select a special fare such as the Green Fares, or individually tailored offers with a higher proportion of SAF during the booking process. They can also offset flight-related CO2 emissions during or after the flight.
In addition to private customers, more corporate customers are also using one of the Lufthansa Group’s offers for more sustainable flying – in 2023, more than 1,500 companies worldwide invested in SAF with the Lufthansa Group.
The Lufthansa Group has set itself ambitious climate protection goals and aims to achieve a neutral CO2 balance by 2050, halving its net CO2 emissions by 2030. As the first airline group in Europe with a science-based CO2 reduction target in line with the goals of the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement, the group is focusing on accelerated fleet modernisation, the continuous optimisation of flight operations, the use of SAF and offers for its private travellers and corporate customers to make air travel more sustainable.