Kelly Leonard, from Kent Hospitality’s Conference and Events team recently travelled to Shanghai to attend Destination Britain China. We attended with Visit Kent and Leeds Castle.
Below Kelly summarises her experience of attending this event:
‘On the first day of the event I had the chance to attend the Marketing Briefing for UK suppliers which gave me great insight into the Chinese market, before which I had very little idea about. Two things stood out to me while listening to the presentations: during China’s version of Black Friday £14.1 billion was made in one day, with Generation Y spending 74% of the total amount; by 2025 over half of the Chinese population will be middle class. Both of these ideas point to the fact that the Generation Y in China is leading the way to China becoming the biggest global economy and keeping the title of ‘1st for outbound travel spend.
‘The next two days were focused on meeting the buyers from companies around China and each day consisted of 20 meetings (each 14 minutes long) with each buyer who had chosen to speak with us. Sharing a table with Visit Kent really worked in the University’s favour as Alanna (from Visit Kent) and myself would spend time introducing the county and the benefits of visiting Kent, and then tying this in with staying in the many bedrooms that we have here at the University.
‘The feedback from most buyers was very encouraging and positive, with many saying they want to move away from spending time in London (due to high costs of accommodation/attractions and being too busy) and that they would look to branching out and visiting Kent.’
We are following up enquiries with buyers Kelly spoke to in Shanghai. To find out more about our conference and event services please visit our website.