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Emerging Market

After suffering from the impact of economic downturn, H1N1 virus disaster, increased fuel price and fluctuating exchange rate in 2009, Travel & Tourism industry start recovering gradually in 2010, a growth of Travel & Tourism Economy GDP of just 0.5% overcome the rapidly decrease by 4.8% in 2009.

However, there are few uneven growths in some regions of the world. Will Europe facing volcano ash disaster and low customer demand, Asia’s rapid recovery from the global economic downturn has its parallel in the recovery in tourism, UNCTAD Global Investment Trends Monitor report on Oct 2010 shows that FDI flows to the United Kingdom and the United States were especially hard hit in the second quarter of 2010. In contrast, flows to the Russian Federation and China increased by 30 per cent and 20 per cent respectively. And UNWTO estimates that arrivals in the year to April have risen by 12% in Asia, compared with an average increase of 7% in the world as a whole. China has become the dominant factor in the region’s development, leading research group Euromonitor International states Chinese outbound tourism will be one of the first to recover following the global economic crisis. The World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) predicts around 100m outbound international journeys will be taken by the Chinese within the next five to ten years, that’s double the figure in 2009. And VisitBritain reports states the number of travellers from China is set to soar by 89% by 2014, the fastest increase in tourism to the UK from any country. Among Brazil, Russia and India, The BRIC Economies become the new emerging market of the travel industry.

As almost half (47%) of the travel industry see emerging markets as one of the biggest growth opportunities over the next five years. TUI Travel PLC has made a significant move towards it. In Russia, TUI first established company in 2002, then TUI Russia & CIS entered the market in 2009 and finally on 2 March...