Check out the almost daily openings of stylish new restaurants and cocktail lounges across the Far East and you might think it's freewheeling business as usual in the adopted home of daredevil deals and conspicuous consumption, or that the much-vaunted green shoots of recovery from the global financial crisis have sprouted here earlier than anywhere else.
You'd be right and wrong on both counts. Right, thanks largely to the financial reserves and colonialist-style largesse of China, that the region as a whole is financially fitter and better-equipped than most to buck stagnation and, by dint of its die-hard tycoon tastes, complex social hierarchies and general lack of transparency, better able to sustain a devotion to the more lavish trappings of business entertaining.
Wrong though, or at least premature as of late summer, that those green shoots have yet to comprise very much more than positive sentiment in the region's investment credentials and ongoing faith in its proven abilities to weather economic storms.
Vital saving of face aside, the more prosaic reality is that Southeast Asia and the Orient have been reliant overall to the tune of nearly 60 per cent on trade with Europe and the US alongside neighbouring Japan.
And with all three major trading partners still battling recession on the home front, both established and emergent countries across the region have seen their imports and exports crash spectacularly during the past year; with not much glimmer of any immediate upturn in fortunes.
Exports from China alone dived 26 per cent in the year to May, according to the Asian Development Bank (ADB); and although the country successfully pumped in US$586 billion to stimulate its economy, re-forecast growth rates of seven per cent for this year and next still fall two points short of GDP needed to fulfil the pre-crisis development and employment plans underpinned by overseas markets.
Trading in similar products with, or through, China has provided some buttress for less prosperous manufacturing countries in the region, says the ADB.
Yet, coupled with differing policies and the determination of individual nations to plough their own furrow on a global stage, the net result is a region that, far from being immune, has felt the crisis as sharply as any other, not to mention its additional problems with swine flu, terrorism, environmental controls and persistently volatile politics sparking uncertainty or unrest, as well as major demonstrations in cities such as Hong Kong and Bangkok.
In short, for all the optimistic signals, Asia is suffering the effects of the world financial crisis as much as any other region.
Perhaps more so in terms of a regional business travel market largely dependent on premium air, hotel and service products frequented by long-haul corporate travellers, including those from the UK, who are either cutting back on their visits and downgrading, or staying home.
Premium cabin seat sales to or within the region dipped an alarming 44 per cent year on year to this April, according to the International Air Transport Association (IATA). During the same month, hotel occupancies also fell dramatically - a drop that was on a par with other regions, according to research company STR Global, but with Beijing, Shanghai and Bangkok notable among cities reporting the lowest occupancies of under 50 per cent.
Once short on high-end air and hotel capacity, Asia is now saddled with a surfeit of both.
As with other regions, its principals this past summer have been cutting capacity and/or deeply discounting in tandem with exploring fresh revenue opportunities.
Good news, in what had become an increasingly costly arena to operate, for corporates wanting to re-negotiate more cost-effective programmes for the long-term.
Unfortunately, warns James Stevenson, executive vice president, Asia/Pacific, for HRG, the region does not always meld comfortably with universally-accepted business travel models or programmes.
"Of course mandating travel policy and actively influencing traveller/travel booker behaviour to drive compliance is key here," he says. "A robust and fair policy will always help achieve programme objectives and drive preferred supplier agreements and rein in unnecessary spend.
"In Asia, however, this can be more difficult to achieve than in, say, Europe or North America. Travel policy, to some degree, is determined by corporate cultures that vary hugely from company to company and country to country.
"In many countries across the region, for example, personal service is highly valued - so some organisations will not be comfortable with online booking tools. They want a high-touch service. Cultural sensitivities need to be considered when deciding the best service solution."
Stevenson adds that any policy has to be clearly understood and have buy-in from different groups within an organisation. It has to take into account the differing needs of travellers, travel bookers, programme managers and individual corporate cultures.
"In this region, in particular, a policy which is not properly communicated and does not receive on-going feedback from these parties will never achieve its maximum potential," he says.
Asia's airlines and hotels are good examples of procurement that can be hampered by cultural differences - not least because the basic criteria demanded by Asian and western travellers in terms of seat or bed, facilitation and added value are frequently very different.
In some respects, compared with their counterparts elsewhere, the region's airlines and hotels are also caught between a rock and a hard place, needing to balance sometimes obscure local ownership or national interests, edicts or restrictions with shifting market forces.
In a similar vein, Asia calls its own shots and is marking economic time, playing a waiting game while the rest of the world catches up.
In the meantime, there is some compensation for business travellers trucking around Asia on no-frills carriers and taking pot luck with hotel bargains - the region's optimism and confidence in recovery sooner rather than later is infectious, and there's no end to the choice of restaurants and bars where at least the notion of privilege lives on.
Airlines
Four to three, three to two or two to one. This, by and large, currently reflects the direct daily frequency cuts by airlines flying UK-Asia routes.
A spokesperson for Cathay Pacific said because of wildly fluctuating demand on various routes it was impossible for any major carrier to predict the addition/deletion of frequencies through forthcoming winter schedules.
Asia/Pacific carriers are expected to account for US$1.1bn of the overall US$9bn airline losses predicted this year by IATA. Along with curtailing frequencies and the scrapping of non-profitable routes, mergers, the re-alignment of alliances, postponement of new aircraft orders and formation of fuel-purchase blocs are all part of regional carrier consolidation and recovery strategies.
Even so, the region remains the best served anywhere in the world from the UK beyond North America.
Expat choice
It may no longer endure a reputation for being clinical and dull but Singapore has retained its status as the most liveable city in Asia.
In a variety of categories covering climate, air quality, personal safety, health services and housing, Singapore ranked top for the 10th straight year in the latest survey by London-based ECA International, which advises expatriates on packages and allowances.
Kobe and Yokohama retained second and third places but Hong Kong and Tokyo swapped their previous fourth and fifth positions due to reported bad air quality and inferior health services in the former.
Taipei and Macau retained their sixth and seventh best location rankings in the survey while Kuala Lumpur and Bangkok swapped eight and ninth positions following political unrest in the latter.
Bangkok nudged Georgetown, Penang to 10th in the rankings. Shanghai and Seoul retained their 11th and 12th positions respectively.