Business travel gets lift as more firms go global

The Global Business Travel Association, considered the world's premier business travel and meetings organization, is predicting that China will exceed the United States to become the world's largest business travel market by 2016.

The US-based organization, which has 6,000 members and manages over $340 billion of global business travel and meetings expenditures annually, said Chinese companies will generate $262 billion worth of business travel this year, a 15.9 percent rise on last year.

The association, which claims a network 17,000 business and government travel and meetings managers around the world, is also predicting that the annual growth in travel expenses by Chinese companies will grow another 18 percent in 2015, within its business travel index outlook for China, released on Nov 1.