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Trip.Biz White Paper: APAC Tops Global Business Travel Spending, AI & ESG as Key Transformative Factors

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SINGAPORE, Aug. 6, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — Trip.Biz, the corporate travel arm of Trip.com Group, released its Corporate Travel Management Market White Paper, highlighting the key trends and behaviours in the business travel landscape. Informed by nearly 2,000 respondents*, the White Paper included data from an online survey and face-to-face interviews, as well as third-party research.

Corporate travel soars, especially in Asia

Like leisure travel, business travel is on the rise. Global business travel spending maintained strong growth in the first half of 2023 and is expected to recover to USD 1.5 trillion by 2024, according to a report issued by the Global Business Travel Association.

The APAC region is leading in business travel expenditure, with a projected growth of 41.2%. Specifically, business travel spending in Singapore, Thailand, and New Zealand is expected to grow by more than 75%, ranking these countries as the top three in the region. Additionally, Japan and South Korea, along with European counterparts Italy and the UK, are also experiencing rapid growth in business travel spending.

Trip.Biz is staying ahead of the region’s meteoric rise, with its headquarters in Singapore and partnerships with Japan, Vietnam, Thailand and London. Further expansions are also planned in Malaysia, Indonesia, South Korea and more.

Elsewhere in Asia, China’s resurgence as the world’s largest business travel market is particularly noteworthy. Its business travel market recovered at a rate of 39.2% in 2023 and is expected to return to 2019 levels by 2024. The recovery of its outbound market has been driven by recent visa-free policies, with Southeast Asia emerging as a major destination. China is also attracting international travellers, with cities such as Hangzhou and Nanjing gaining prominence as business travel destinations. Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou remain among the most popular cities for business travel.

AI and ESG: transforming business travel

According to Trip.Biz’s survey, over 50% of businesses said they are likely to adopt AI technologies. Travel managers and travellers expressed hope that AI could be used in itinerary planning, process optimisation, data analysis and more to minimise human error and repetitive tasks.

Such advancements have the potential to revolutionise business travel management, and Trip.com Group has been at the forefront of this transformation, testing various “AI + tourism” applications. For instance, its intuitive AI assistant, TripGenie, can generate travel recommendations within seconds based on user prompts or questions in the app. Plans are also underway to make TripGenie available to business travellers on Trip.Biz.

Moreover, AI has enhanced internal work efficiency at Trip.Biz and supported the customer service team in resolving inquiries and delivering a seamless experience for travellers.

AI’s impact extends beyond bookings and data gathering. It can also verify the authenticity of invoices during reimbursement, reducing administrative burdens. In the near future, AI is expected to amplify personalisation and become multimodal, though regulatory concerns remain.

Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors are increasingly important for businesses and investors, with lower-emission flights and hotels taking lower-carbon initiatives being key considerations for pursuing more sustainable travel. 91.6% of business travellers are likely to choose these options. The top three business ESG measures include encouraging such choices, as well as prioritising employee welfare and advocating for paperless offices.

To further this goal, Trip.Biz is one of the leading TMC companies to publish flight carbon emission data in 2022. By 2023, this expanded to include carbon emission data for hotels, trains, and cars in selected regions, along with corporate carbon emission credit accounts, carbon budgeting and control.

Trends: the top likes and dislikes of business travellers

International business travel is seeing distinct trends in traveller preferences emerge.

For accommodation, business travellers surveyed cited flexibility and efficiency, a quiet environment and safety as their top priorities. Mid-range to high-end hotels are preferred among them.

Regarding flight booking, direct routes are the most sought-after, even outweighing suitable flight arrival and departure times. Once on board, travellers also highly value comfort and service quality.

Ground transportation is also evolving. Satisfaction with train and high-speed railway services is largely influenced by the overall environment, making the launch of Biz Travel’s Train Seat Selection function in 2024 especially timely. This new feature enhances travel by allowing passengers to select their seats. For car use and rental, safety remains the top priority, even surpassing comfort and travel policies.

Another key trend is the rise of “special forces” business travel, reflecting a rapid, military-style approach to travel favoured by younger professionals. This corporate travel trend emphasises advanced planning, efficient itineraries, and cost minimisation. For instance, such business travellers book typically book their trips at least two weeks in advance, arrive at airports 1.5 hours before departure, and often stay only 1-2 days in hotels. Check-ins generally occur around 19:00, with check-outs by 8:00, indicating a preference for tighter schedules.

On the other end, “bleisure” travel is on the rise, with 95% of business travellers in 2023 expressing a willingness to combine business and leisure activities, a 3.7% increase from 2022. Overall, more business travellers are going further too, as more long-distance routes resume.

Business travel offers great growth opportunities in a recovering market. However, companies also face challenges such as rising costs of flights, hotels and other travel services. Employees mention issues with accommodation conditions, sleep quality, and long transport times during trips. Post-trip, managing receipts and securing reimbursements can be challenging.

“Trip.Biz aims to offer quality business travel solutions that address these challenges and maximise opportunities with an all-in-one digital business travel solution,” said Violet Zong, Chief Marketing Officer of Trip.Biz. “Through initiatives such as offering extensive content with exclusive rates and data-driven consultancy, we are committed to providing seamless travel experiences that enhance productivity and support business growth.”

For more detailed insights, read the full Trip.Biz Corporate Travel Management Market White Paper.

*Respondents from mainland China

About Trip.Biz

Trip.Biz is a digital TMC powered by Trip.com group. Headquartered in Singapore, Trip.Biz is elevating business travel management through human-centric technology, rich inventory, and sustainable solutions, all on one platform. With roots dating back to 2006, Trip.Biz has already garnered the trust of over 15,000 large-scale corporations and more than 1,000,000 small to medium-sized enterprises in business travel across the globe. Our global customer service POSs cater to clients across different time zones. Trip.Biz is committed to providing cost-effective and time-efficient solutions that enable businesses to focus on what really matters – growth and success. By saving on travel, businesses can invest more in their core operations, expand their reach, and achieve their goals.

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SOURCE Trip.Biz

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Huawei Launches Over 20 All-New Xinghe Intelligent Network Offerings to Amplify Industrial Intelligence

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SHANGHAI, Sept. 21, 2024 /CNW/ — During HUAWEI CONNECT 2024, Leon Wang, President of Huawei’s Data Communication Product Line, announced more than 20 all-new Xinghe Intelligent Network offerings globally at the summit themed “Xinghe Intelligent Network, Amplify Industrial Intelligence”. These purpose-built offerings contribute to an AI network ecosystem and help customers seize opportunities for intelligent development and maximize intelligent productivity.

With the development of AI technologies, the world is advancing from digital transformation to intelligent transformation. All industries are quickly adopting AI technologies to create new use cases, for example, self-driving cars, intelligent diagnosis and treatment, and intelligent train inspection. All of these are significantly improving the efficiency and experience of our work and daily lives.

The advent of the intelligent era is driving networks into intelligent ones. Huawei has been making joint efforts with partners to lead research and practices of intelligent networks. That’s why Huawei constantly upgrades its Xinghe Intelligent Network offerings to help customers grasp opportunities for intelligent development, build new intelligent network infrastructure, and maximize intelligent productivity in the intelligent era. Key highlights include the following:

Xinghe Intelligent Campus focuses on AI-enabled, experience-centric campus network construction, ensuring zero freezing for audio and video applications, zero degradation on services, and zero waiting for interactions.Xinghe Intelligent WAN introduces a wide range of intelligent technologies to intelligently schedule millions of flows and precisely optimize service experience.Xinghe Intelligent Fabric adopts the AI Turbo engine to improve network throughput, enhancing foundation model training efficiency.Xinghe Intelligent Network Security integrates AI technologies into network security detection, accurately and rapidly identifying threats.

To support network solutions in various scenarios, Huawei released more than 20 featured offerings globally. Examples include the industry’s first 100 Tbps fixed-form Ethernet data center switch, the industry’s first 51.2 Tbps liquid-cooled fixed-form data center switch, the industry’s first AI router, high-quality 10 Gbps campus switches and Wi-Fi 7 APs, Intelligent SASE Branch Security Solution, and the industry’s first IP Autonomous Driving Network Solution. All these offerings are designed to help customers with greater business returns.

As the intelligent era calls for intelligent networks, Huawei will continue to drive the development of intelligent networks and upgrade its Xinghe Intelligent Network products and solutions, ultimately helping global customers to stride towards the intelligent era and reap more benefits.

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SOURCE Huawei

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HUAWEI CONNECT 2024 | Huawei Unveils the Brand-New Xinghe Intelligent Fabric Solution, Powering the AI Era

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SHANGHAI, Sept. 21, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — At HUAWEI CONNECT 2024, over 300 industry leaders, experts, and scholars gathered for the data center network session themed “Xinghe Intelligent Fabric, Powering the AI Era.” The event featured discussions on the evolution and technological advancements of data center networks. During the session, Arthur Wang, President of Data Center Network Domain at Huawei’s Data Communication Product Line, introduced the newly upgraded Xinghe Intelligent Fabric solution. This cutting-edge solution aims to establish a data center network characterized by one map for intelligent operations and maintenance (O&M), one network for diverse computing, and one platform for simplified deployment, providing a robust network infrastructure to support enterprises’ digital and intelligent transformations.

In his keynote speech, Arthur Wang outlined the emerging trends in data center network development. He emphasized that in the AI era, data center networks require both a “brilliant brain” and “resilient bones.” The newly launched Xinghe Intelligent Fabric solution is designed to deliver a powerful network infrastructure tailored for the AI era, featuring:

One Map for Intelligent O&M: Zero Management Concerns

Huawei’s exclusive network digital map enables rapid cross-data center and cross-vendor fault identification within minutes. Additionally, the NetMaster network large model facilitates AI-driven O&M, eliminating manual intervention and ensuring zero management concerns.

One Network for Diverse Computing: Zero Service Interruptions

The Xinghe Intelligent Fabric supports various application scenarios, including intelligent computing, general-purpose computing, and storage. The innovative Network Scale Load Balancing (NSLB) algorithm increases network throughput to 95% and boosts AI training efficiency by over 10%. With the exclusive iReliable three-level fast switchover capability, it achieves sub-millisecond switchover, guaranteeing zero service interruptions.

One Platform for Simplified Deployment: Zero Configuration Errors

By employing digital twins to simulate networks in advance and verify configurations post-deployment, the solution ensures 100% accuracy in network changes. By harnessing network-security convergence capabilities, AI creates an intelligent security matrix to analyze millions of security policies, achieving zero configuration errors.

Looking ahead, Huawei will continue to collaborate with industry partners to enhance research and innovation in data center networks, promote intelligent upgrades, and create greater value for the industry.

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SOURCE Huawei

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Cultivating a Culture of Peace: International Day of Peace Statement by Education Cannot Wait Executive Director Yasmine Sherif

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NEW YORK, Sept. 21, 2024 /CNW/ — The longing for peace transcends time, geography and religion. Based on justice, human rights and universal values outlined in the UN Charter, a culture of peace brings us all together in our common agenda for humanity. We can only co-exist by aligning ourselves with such a world order.

On today’s International Day of Peace, we call on world leaders to end conflict and embrace a culture of peace as enshrined in the UN Charter and related international law.

As the UN General Assembly outlined in the Declaration and Programme of Action on a Culture of Peace  a quarter of a century ago, this must include: “Respect for life, human rights and fundamental freedoms; the promotion of non-violence through education, dialogue and cooperation; commitment to peaceful settlement of conflicts; and adherence to freedom, justice, democracy, tolerance, solidarity, cooperation, pluralism, cultural diversity, dialogue and understanding at all levels of society and among nations.”

Educating for peace starts at home and continues in school through years of education. This takes place during the most formative years of a child learning about their identity, ethics, values, conscience, courage and compassion. Wherever there has been a failure in imparting on children the imperative for peace, the world is turned upside down. This is a global failure with no geographical boundaries.

Today, we live in a world of unprecedented violence, armed conflict and chaos. All the genuine and heartfelt commitments made in 1945 in the UN Charter seem to be fading away. Children and adolescents are the most vulnerable, the least protected, and the most impacted. They bear the brunt. 

Global conflicts killed three times as many children in 2023 than in the previous year, according to the United Nations. The number of forcibly displaced people reached an unprecedented 120 million in May 2024.

“In 2023, the United Nations verified a record 32,990 grave violations against 22,557 children in 26 conflict zones, a 35% increase from the previous year,” according to recent analysis by the UN.

We can end these violations and invest in a constructive co-existence globally. We can use our resources for education, rather than for wars. In classrooms around the world, girls and boys who have withstood the wrath of war can rebuild their hopes and their lives. Cultivating a culture of peace is possible. The financial resources exist. The choice as to how we use them is ours.

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SOURCE Education Cannot Wait

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