Lecture # 11
International Business
Tourism
• International Business tourism or business
travel is a more limited and focused subset
of regular tourism. During business
tourism, individuals are still working and
being paid, but they are doing so away
from both their workplace and home.
• Some definitions of tourism tend to
exclude business travel. However,
the World Tourism Organization (WTO)
defines tourists as people "traveling to
and staying in places outside their usual
environment for not more than one
consecutive year for leisure, business and
other purposes".
• Primary business tourism activities
include meetings, and attending
conferences and exhibitions. Despite the
term business in business tourism, when
individuals from government or nonprofit organizations engage in similar
activities, this is still categorized as
business tourism.
Business tourism is the name given
to all forms of tourism that are workrelated, i.e. when people are not
primarily motivated by recreational
pursuits but travel because of their
work, especially to attend meetings,
incentives, conferences and exhibitions.
Significance
• Historically, business tourism, in the form of traveling
to, spending money and staying abroad for some time,
has a history as long as that of international trade. In
late 20th century, business tourism is seen as a major
industry.
• According to the 1998 data from the British Tourist
Authority and National Tourist Boards, business
tourism accounted for about 14% of all trips to or
within UK, and 15% of the tourist market within UK. A
2005 estimate suggested that those numbers for UK
may be closer to 30%.Sharma (2004) cited a WTO
estimated that business tourism accounts for 30% of
international tourism, through its importance varies
significantly between different countries
Characteristics
• Compared to regular tourism, business ones
involves a smaller section of the population, with
different motivations, and additional freedom-ofchoice limiting constrains imposed through the
business aspects.[1] Destinations of business
tourism are much more likely to be areas
significantly developed for business purposes
(cities, industrial regions, etc.).[1] An average
business tourist is more wealthy than an average
leisure tourist, and is expected to spend more
money.
Characteristics
• Business tourism can be divided into primary and
secondary activities. Primary one
are business (work) related, and included activities
such as consultations, inspections, and attending
meetings. Secondary ones are related to tourism
(leisure) and include activities such as dining out,
recreation, shopping, sightseeing, meeting others
for leisure activities, and so on.[3] While the
primary ones are seen as more important, the
secondary ones are nonetheless often described as
"substantial"
• Business tourism can involve individual and small
group travel, and destinations can include small
to larger meetings, including conventions and
conferences, trade fairs, and exhibitions. In the
United States, about half of business tourism
involves attending a large meeting of such kind.
• Most tourist facilities such as airports, restaurants
and hotels are shared between leisure and
business tourists, through a seasonal difference is
often apparent (for example, business tourism
may use those facilities during times less
attractive for leisure tourists, such as when the
weather conditions are less attractive)
Business tourism can be divided into:
• traditional business traveling, or meetings - intended
for face-to-face meetings with business partners in
different locations
• incentive trips - a job perk, aimed at motivating
employees (for example, approximately a third of UK
companies use this strategy to motivate workers)
• conference and exhibition traveling - intended for
attending large scale meetings. In an estimated
number of 14,000 conferences worldwide (for 1994),
primary destinations are Paris, London, Madrid,
Geneva, Brussels, Washington, New York, Sydney and
Singapore
The abbreviation MICE (meetings,
incentives, conferences, exhibitions) is
sometimes used in business tourism to
cover those four core market areas.
Business tourism can occur domestically
or internationally, at short haul or long
haul ranges. According to the World
Tourism Organisation, business tourism
accounted for 16% or 120 million
international tourist arrivals in 2004.
The World Travel and Tourism Council estimated
business travel spend for 2011 at $872 billion.
Business tourism is particularly important for two
sectors:
The airline and airport sector, because business
tourism creates most of their revenue from
the First and Business class sections of the
aircraft.
- City centre hotels and establishments that
have conference facilities attached (because
attendants are then a captive audience for
catering and other amenities).
With the progress in telecommunication
technology (video-conferencing, the
Internet) it was initially feared that
business tourism would decline, but
companies still prefer to send
representation, as face-to-face contact is
still deemed to be the main selling
tool for businesses
Tourism is an experience
lived either individually or
collectively, driven by a
range of motivations and
purposes, from leisure to
business, from health to a
search for authenticity.