Chinese company Infinitus recently took about 12,700 of its employees on an overseas holiday. Staff members of the Guangzhou-based company that makes and distributes beauty and healthcare products, traveled to Thailand in groups of 2,000 to 3,000 from May 10-26, the Bangkok Post reported.

Infinitus has organized similar trips previously and has taken employees to the United States, Switzerland and Russia, according to a former employee surnamed Chen.

The company made $2.64 billion in profits in 2014, says Directsellingnews.com, a US website.

It has become a trend among many Chinese companies to send employees on "incentive trips", says Jiang Yiyi, director of the China Tourism Academy's International Tourism Development Institute.

She adds that such trips not only broaden employees' outlook of the world but also help them promote the company at home and abroad.

From May 6-10, China-based health product supplier Tiens Group took some 6,000 of its employees to France, where they visited hotels, shopping malls and scenic spots. It was to celebrate 20 years of the company's founding. The total cost of the exercise was estimated at $14-22 million, according to French newspaper Le Monde.

In April 2014, US skin-care products maker Nu Skin's China branch arranged for 14,500 of its staff members to tour Dubai, and the company is expected to send about 1,600 more in 2016, media reported.

Business travel

China's business travel expenditure jumped from $32 billion in 2000 to $225 billion in 2013, according to Global Business Travel Association, an industry body from the United States. The country's market for business travel maintained a 16 percent annual growth rate since 2000, and will likely become the biggest worldwide in the future, it says.

The market is expected to see a growth of 16-17 percent this year, according to a 2014 report by China's largest online travel agency Ctrip.

An increasing number of foreign businesses have set up branches in China, which grows the business travel market, says Fang Jiqin, CEO of Ctrip's business travel division.

"Foreign companies spend more on international tickets and hotels than their Chinese counterparts," Fang says.

Meng Wei, an engineer with a Fortune Global 500 company in Beijing, has become a regular guest at high-end hotels in major Chinese cities, including Sheraton and JW Marriott Hotel. Many top foreign companies in China want to make their employees comfortable, especially while on business trips.

The engineer has a daily accommodation budget of up to 1,000 yuan ($161). A night at many four-or five-star hotels which have business links with his company costs around 700 yuan.

"Approximately 85 percent of guests are from foreign-invested companies or joint ventures," says Liang Xue, assistant communications manager at the Kerry Hotel in Beijing.

By comparison, Chinese companies might have stricter rules governing expenses for business travel, but their global expansion is also considered a major force that's bolstering the business travel market, according to AirPlus International, a business-travel consultancy in Germany.

There's also a growth in business travel management companies. In China, for instance, the central government's anti-graft campaign has prompted many State-owned entities to hire the services of such companies for internal audits and related issues.

At present, international travel management companies, such as Hogg Robinson Group and Carlson Wagonlit Travel, have made their presence felt in China.

Domestic travel management companies are also catching up in a big way.

Ctrip announced its expansion into business travel in 2006, and its business travel management arm raked in 8.1 billion yuan in trade volumes last year, up 40 percent from the previous year. The company is now managing travel for more than 5,000 large-scale companies, including 100 Fortune Global 500 ones.

Chinese companies can get access to better resources, thanks to their long-term relations with airline companies and hotels, and can better understand the travel habits of Chinese people, says Fang.

Online customers

Travel service providers are also using mobile Internet technology to woo customers.

China has more than 640 million Internet users, and more than 80 percent of them surf the Web on their mobile devices, according to official data.

Several travel management businesses and hotels in China are trying to tap into this huge pool of online users via smartphone applications.

Ctrip developed China's first business travel management mobile app in 2013. The app enables travelers to book air tickets and hotels as well as reschedule their travel plans, Fang says.

Four Seasons also has developed an app in Chinese for its hotels.

Many Chinese guests' first engagement with their hotels is through their mobile app, according to the Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts' Asia-Pacific president Michael Crawford.

Conrad Hotels & Resorts, which has eight hotels across China, offers a concierge mobile app that allows a Chinese-speaking client to order room service in Chinese and has the order received in English by the hotel.

The upcoming Conrad and Waldorf Astoria hotels in China will cater to the Chinese preference for holding business meetings in private dining rooms, according to John Vanderslice, global head of luxury and lifestyle brands at Hilton Worldwide.