A record 400 stallholders are due to gather at this year's International Luxury Travel Market Asia in Shanghai, underlining the growing appetite for luxury tourism in Asia-Pacific.

Scheduled for 4 to 7 June, ILTM says it is the only luxury travel event dedicated to luxury travel buyers from the Asia-Pacific region. The event is created for the region's buying elite and allows planners and designers of luxury travel to meet directly with suppliers in a series of pre-scheduled one-to-one meetings. To ensure this ratio, 400 elite travel experiences from across the world have been invited to meet with a similar number of buyers from Asia-Pacific alone. The 2010 event was also held in Shanghai and had around 350 exhibitors.

The event highlights how the growth and composition of the luxury goods and services sectors can provide useful intelligence to wealth managers on trends among high net worth and ultra high net worth individuals in Asia's booming economies. 

The suppliers represent hidden luxury to wild escapes, authentic to gastronomic experiences, elite transportation to wellness retreats and spas, and pampered luxury to philanthropy. Besides linking luxury travel buyers and sellers, ILTM is also a venue to discuss insights on the future of the luxury travel industry. Some of this year's exhibitors include Small Luxury Hotels of the World, Jumeriah Hotels & Resorts, Trails of Indochina, Conrad Hotels & Resorts, Ritz-Carlton, &Beyond, Abercrombie & Kent, and Cheval Blanc Courcheval to name a few. 

"The Asia-Pacific region is driving growth in the luxury travel industry. There are an estimated 250 million people from China now defined as 'buyers of luxury,' and notably appearing to be following the Western trend of 'spending for experiences' in their travel preferences," said Alison Gilmore, exhibition director for ILTM and ILTM Asia.

"With Japan and Australia as established and integral outbound markets within the region, our research shows strong outbound luxury travel growth from other key markets, including India and South Korea," she added.

In the December 2011 ILTM Global Trends Report, 90 per cent of the luxury travel business leaders from Asia-Pacific said they find current business conditions better despite the financial climate.

It is this optimism, coupled with the relative youth of many of the specific markets, that bolstered the group's drive to offer new and classic luxury travel solutions to buyers in the region. In a related survey by the Shanghai Travelers' Club, a luxury travel group for Chinese billionaires, 200,000 Chinese travelers in 2010 had the capacity to spend at least $150,000 in shopping during leisure trips.