October figures continue positive trend for Asia Pacific tourism

Figures published by PATA show that the numbers of international visitors to the Asia Pacific region grew by 2.2 percent year-on-year in October 2009, improving the overall position for this 10-month period to just four percent down as compared to the same period in 2008.

Within Asia, Southeast Asia recorded a strong seven percent growth in international visitor arrivals, boosted by another impressive month for Malaysia (+14%) and better results from Indonesia (+3 percent) and Thailand (+11%). In Northeast Asia, arrivals to Chinese Taipei (+13 percent) and Korea (ROK) (+13 percent) maintained strong growth momentum, while arrivals to Hong Kong SAR (+9 percent) and Macau SAR (+5 percent) continued to improve. However, weak arrivals to China (+1 percent) and the sharp declines experienced by Japan (-11 percent) limited the overall growth rate for the sub-region to a subdued three percent.

In South Asia, Maldives (+11 percent), Nepal (+11 percent) and Sri Lanka (+7 percent) reported robust growth in visitor numbers in October but India’s tourist numbers were down by one percent. As a result, the overall growth for the sub-region was a modest two percent, reflecting the dominance of the India inbound travel market in the region. The Pacific recorded three percent growth, with Australia (+6 percent) and New Zealand (+8%) leading the rebound. However, arrival growth remained depressed for Guam (-9 percent) and Hawaii (-0.3 percent).

This article is quoted from the newsletter PATAnews from PATA . The article was originally published on 2010.01.07.

This article is uploaded by Majbritt Thomsen, administrator on ‘Views On Tourism’.