According to the 2025 Q1 China Business Travel Market Trend Insight Report, 55.7% of enterprises are either already expanding overseas or planning to. Nearly 30% of the travel management companies (TMCs) report that 30%-50% of their clients have gone international.
But navigating the international business travel landscape is far more complex than domestic travel, often resulting in a “culture shock” for Chinese firms.
At the 2025 TravelDaily Digital Intelligence Conferenc (Beijing Edition), Baichuan Hu, Channel Operations Director of Huizhi International Travel, addressed these challenges in his keynote speech "Innovative Supply Chain Solutions: Empowering a New Business Travel Experience."
China has bounced back strongly post-COVID, now leading the world in business travel with a market size exceeding $370 billion. Yet, outbound corporate travel remains fraught with challenges:
1. Information Opacity
Booking hotels overseas requires heightened caution. Employees and even TMC operators are much more careful compared to domestic bookings—largely due to limited information and unfamiliarity with the market.
2.Volatile hotel pricing
In some off-beat overseas destinations, hotel options are often limited, with incomplete inventory across platforms and frequent price surges.
3. Unmet long-stay needs.
For overseas projects lasting 3 to 12 months, companies often seek apartment-style accommodation with kitchens to meet Chinese travelers’ cooking habits. Standard travel systems or OTAs typically fail to support this demand.
