China seen replacing US in 2016 as leading business travel market

Aided by an increase in business-travel spending, the United States will keep its title as the world's leading corporate travel market until 2016 - then China will take over the top spot, according to a report from a travel trade group.

China is "moving toward global dominance of the business-travel market," the United States-based Global Business Travel Association said in its 2013 annual global outlook.

In 2012, the association said that China would surpass the US by 2015 as the world's largest business-travel market, but in its latest report issued on Tuesday it issued a revised forecast based on what it said was "steady" growth in US business-travel spending despite a "shaky" economic recovery. It projected a 4.2 percent rise in US business-travel spending this year to $273 billion, and that means a delay in China overtaking the US by at least a year, according to the association.