ASIA PACIFIC. Visitor arrivals in 40 leading Asia Pacific destinations will climb by just over +5% a year for the next five years, reaching 808 million by 2022. That’s according to a new report from Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA).
In 2018 alone, the aggregate growth rate for international visitors into Asia Pacific is predicted to be around +6.7%, generating an inbound volume of more than 670 million for the year.
By sub-region, Asia will continue with its strong growth momentum with an average growth rate for foreign visitor arrivals of +5.6% per annum between 2017 and 2022, while the Americas and the Pacific follow with average growth rates of +3.6% and +3.4% per annum respectively over the same period.
PATA said that Asia’s share of foreign arrivals will rise between 2017 and 2022. After capturing a relative share of 73% in 2017, the proportion is expected to increase to almost 75% by 2022. The impact on the Americas and the Pacific will be a slight contraction in their respective relative shares from 22.9% to 21.3% for the former and from 4.1% to 3.8% for the latter, even as their respective numbers of foreign arrivals increase.
PATA CEO Dr. Mario Hardy said: “The numbers themselves once again remain bullish for Asia Pacific over the next five years. This does not however mean that we can relax any commitment to delivering a continually improving service to these visitors. Competition – both within Asia Pacific and external to it – remains fierce, and the distribution of these visitor numbers will depend very much on the delivery of a first-class experience.”
Highlights of the study include:
- Aggregate annual growth in international visitor arrivals (IVAs) into 40 destinations across the Asia Pacific region is expected to be between +6% and +7% in 2017, reaching a combined inbound volume of a little under 631 million;
- By the end of 2022 it is estimated that more than 808 million IVAs will be received annually across these Asia Pacific destinations, suggesting an average annual growth rate (AAGR) of a little over +5% between 2017 and 2022;
- Over this period, the AAGRs will vary considerably across each of the Asia Pacific regions, ranging from +5.6% for Asia, to +3.6% for the Americas and around +3.4% for the Pacific;
- Within the Americas these AAGRs will vary from a low of +2.9% for North America through +3.8% for South America, and +5.1% for Central America;
- Across Asia, the AAGRs will vary from a low of +4.9% for Northeast Asia through +6.1% for Southeast Asia, +8.4% for South Asia and +8.8% for West Asia;
- The sub-regions of the Pacific are expected to show AAGRs of +1% for Polynesia, to +3.8% for Micronesia, +4% for Melanesia and +4.8% for Oceania;
- Intra-regional flows will remain strong for the Americas and Asia, reaching 77% and close to 94% respectively in 2022. The Pacific is expected to see its intra-regional arrivals count drop to just over 29% in 2022 with well over half of the IVAs in that year coming from Asia (58.6%);
- Overall, the origin markets of Asia will account for 65.5% of all IVAs into this collective of 40 Asia Pacific destinations in 2022, an increase in its relative share position of more than 1.3 percentage points since 2017.
