The doors of the Shanghai World Expo Exhibition & Convention Centre swung open on 26 May for the ninth edition of ITB China, the country’s premier B2B travel trade fair. This year’s show is 20 per cent larger than 2025, filling every square metre of the expanded floorplate with more than 900 exhibitors from 85 countries and 1,700 hand-picked Chinese and international buyers. Organiser Messe Berlin (China) used the lion-dance opening ceremony to flag four growth pillars shaping Chinese outbound and inbound demand: luxury, cruise, outdoor & sports tourism, and educational travel. Managing director David Axiotis told delegates that China’s luxury outbound segment is projected to reach US $88 billion by 2028, while cruise capacity will surpass pre-pandemic levels next summer thanks to new home-port agreements in Shanghai and Shenzhen. A dedicated Travel Innovation Hub runs alongside the exhibition, matching start-ups with venture investors and showcasing AI-driven trip-planning tools, biometric boarding solutions and real-time carbon calculators that corporate travel managers can plug into their booking platforms. Session highlights include a panel with Alibaba’s Fliggy, Trip.com Group and Tencent Cloud on harnessing private-domain traffic, and a master-class on servicing China’s growing Gen-Z backpacker niche. Georgia takes centre-stage as the 2026 Official Partner Destination, rolling out visa-on-arrival fast-track lanes for Chinese tour groups at Tbilisi Airport and promoting a winter charter programme linking Harbin with the Caucasus ski resort of Gudauri.
![ITB China 2026 opens in Shanghai, spotlighting luxury, cruise and travel-tech]()
Whether travellers are bound for Tbilisi or any of the other 84 countries represented on the show floor, many will need to navigate constantly changing entry requirements. VisaHQ’s online platform (https://www.visahq.com/china/) streamlines the application process for both individual tourists and corporate travel planners, providing up-to-date visa information, digital submission tools and courier services that reduce paperwork and turnaround times for Chinese passport holders and their international counterparts.
For mobility professionals the three-day gathering offers a barometer of China’s reopening momentum: the number of pre-scheduled meetings—44,000 according to organisers—signals that global suppliers are doubling down on the world’s largest source market even as economic headwinds persist. Exhibitors from France, Saudi Arabia and Brazil all reported signing new MICE and incentive group contracts on the show’s first afternoon.
Whether travellers are bound for Tbilisi or any of the other 84 countries represented on the show floor, many will need to navigate constantly changing entry requirements. VisaHQ’s online platform (https://www.visahq.com/china/) streamlines the application process for both individual tourists and corporate travel planners, providing up-to-date visa information, digital submission tools and courier services that reduce paperwork and turnaround times for Chinese passport holders and their international counterparts.
For mobility professionals the three-day gathering offers a barometer of China’s reopening momentum: the number of pre-scheduled meetings—44,000 according to organisers—signals that global suppliers are doubling down on the world’s largest source market even as economic headwinds persist. Exhibitors from France, Saudi Arabia and Brazil all reported signing new MICE and incentive group contracts on the show’s first afternoon.
