The annual China Incentives, Business Travel & Meetings event took place from Sept 12 to 14 in Beijing, attracting over 30 international buyers and 5,000 domestic and global participants.

Since 2005, CIBTM - the leading event of its kind in China - has provided a platform for the world's leading suppliers to meet top-level buyers in charge of organizing and planning meetings, events and business travel, in China, Asia and in the rest of the world.

"Improved air travel and transport links have contributed greatly to the increasing demand for outbound business tourism in China, with an estimated 100 million tourists traveling outbound from China by 2015," said Craig Moyes, director of Reed Travel Exhibitions, the event's founder and co-organizer along with the Beijing Municipal Government.

A number of international destinations vied for buyers, including Tourism Australia, the Scandinavia Tourism Board, Geneva Tourism & Conventions, South African Tourism, the Sicily Convention Bureau, Tourism Ireland, the Government of Dubai Department of Tourism, and the Thailand Convention Bureau.

And though they are hit by the ongoing eurozone economic turmoil, the cities of Madrid and Barcelona in Spain, were also represented at this year's event.