Asia Pacific tourism outlook: Mostly blue sky

BANGKOK – After years of booming tourism growth, the Asia Pacific region is  pausing for breath in 2019, according to the Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA).

Data for foreign arrivals into Asia Pacific destinations confirmed the overall continuation of solid growth in 2018, achieving a 7.3% annual increase compared to 2017, notes PATA’s Annual Travel Monitor 2019 Final Edition.

International visitor arrivals (IVAs) saw a record high of close to 697 million.

Over the five years between 2014 and 2018, the 46 Asia Pacific destinations covered in the report have collectively seen their IVAs increase by almost 24%, adding more than 136 million additional arrivals to the collective foreign inbound count in the process.

In percentage increase terms between 2017 and 2018, Asia had the strongest annual increase at 8.7%, followed by the Pacific at 4% and the Americas at 3.5%.

At the individual Asia Pacific destination level, destinations with the strongest annual percentage growth rates in 2018  were Nepal (24.8%), Turkey (21.8%) and Vietnam (19.9%).

Nevertheless, PATA says, the strong collective performance of Asia Pacific destinations in 2018 appears to be changing into 2019.

Chief executive Dr. Mario Hardy pointed out, “Preliminary results for early 2019 show a slight softening in the collective annual increase in foreign arrivals into 37 Asia Pacific destinations, reducing to 6.2% year-to-date, year-on-year.”

“Even so,” Dr Hardy added, “the growth rate has added almost 17 million additional arrivals to the total inbound count during the first periods of 2019 relative to the same period of last year.”

He concluded, “The impacts of various geo-political and natural changes appear to be affecting the global travel and tourism sector and we expect some significant changes in the Asia Pacific 2019 picture by the end of the year.”