ASIA PACIFIC. Almost 261 million travellers visited 35 Asia Pacific destinations during the early months of 2016, an increase of +3.3% or 8.4 million year-on-year, according to the Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA).
The early 2016 results cover 35 destinations which have released international visitor arrivals data for the first six months, with the exception of seven destinations that cover between the first three and five months.
Arrivals from China accounted for 51.8 million visitors to other Asia Pacific destinations, up 2.1 million from early 2015.
Japan, Thailand and South Korea all recorded increases of between 800,000 and almost 1 million additional arrivals from China in early 2016.
Thailand and South Korea also reported increased arrivals of 84,700 and 20,700 passengers respectively. However, arrivals from Russia into 24 Asia Pacific destinations fell by 1.2 million, or half, during the same period.
PATA said that Asia Pacific destinations welcomed almost 577 million international visitors during calendar year 2015 – an increase of +4.4% or 24.1 million arrivals year-on-year.
Across the entire Asia Pacific region, the top five performing destinations during 2015 by annual percentage growth were Myanmar, up almost +52%; Japan +47%; Chile +23%; Thailand +20%; and Sri Lanka +18%.
In absolute numbers, Japan posted the biggest annual increase, adding more than 6.3 million foreign arrivals, while China and Thailand each added over 5.0 million foreign arrivals.
