Tourism to Drive Additional US$10 Billion to Asia Pacific over Next Three Years

Eighteen Asia Pacific destinations are expected to receive more than US$110 billion in additional tourism revenue over the next three years, according to a new report by the Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA).

Thailand will be one of the biggest beneficiaries, gaining almost US$13 billion by 2009. Other markets likely to receive strong receipts growth over the forecast period include Malaysia with close to US$11 billion; Korea (ROK) with US$7 billion, China (PRC) with US$36 billion; and Macau SAR with US$5 billion.

These findings are contained in the Asia Pacific Tourism Forecasts 2007-2009 report which was just released by PATA.

The predicted windfall for Thailand follows on from the results of the recent Asia Travel Intentions Survey 2007 which revealed that nine percent more travelers were looking at Asia as their next travel destination. One in five ranked Thailand as their most likely destination with 84% of Swedish respondents most likely to consider the destination for a holiday within the next two years.

The survey was jointly conducted by Visa International Asia Pacific (Visa) and PATA.

"One of the fast growing regions in the world, Asia Pacific stimulates some 60% of global tourism demand. Last year, we recorded 350 million international inbound trips - that's almost 100 million more arrivals to Asia Pacific shores than we saw at the end of the twentieth century, only a few years ago," said John Koldowski, Director of PATA's Strategic Intelligence Centre.

"And PATA expects this momentum to continue in the medium-term with arrivals growth averaging around six cent per year to 2009."

"While inbound flows are expected to continue in the medium-term, Asia Pacific shall remain largely an intra-regional bloc. Most of this growth will come from other Asia Pacific markets with some of these expected to show double digit growth. Hong Kong traffic into Japan is expected to grow  by 17% over the forecast period; China (PRC) to Singapore by 16%; India to China by 15%; and USA and Canada to China each by 13%," he added.

Produced by PATA's Strategic Intelligence Centre, the Asia Pacific Tourism Forecasts 2007-2009 is researched and prepared by the noted Professors Lindsay W. Turner and Stephen F. Witt, both of whom are internationally recognised as leading experts on the econometric modelling and forecasting of tourism demand.

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