Pacific Asia Region Records 7 Percent Visitor Growth in January

Pacific Asia Region Records 7 Percent Visitor Growth in January

The Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) released preliminary figures for international visitor arrivals into Asia and the Pacific for January 2011, showing a 7 percent year-on-year expansion.

South Asia set the pace with the strongest arrivals growth from among the four sub-regions with a gain of 14 percent. Sri Lanka (up 46 percent), Nepal (up 26 percent), the Maldives (up 18 percent) and India (up 10 percent) each set new records for the month. The ICC Cricket World Cup 2011, which started in mid-February in Bangladesh, India and Sri Lanka, is expected to help maintain the current growth momentum for this sub-region up to and including the final on April 2.

The destinations of Southeast Asia also reported a strong gain of 10 percent for the month, boosted by double-digit growth in international arrivals to Cambodia (up 18 percent), Indonesia (up 11 percent), Myanmar (up 27 percent), the Philippines (up 17 percent), Singapore (up 16 percent), Thailand (up 12 percent) and Vietnam (up 22 percent). Growth in visitor arrivals to Malaysia remained sluggish with only a 1 percent increase due largely to a small decline in arrivals from Southeast Asia, a sub-region that contributes more than 70 percent of total visitor arrivals to Malaysia.

Northeast Asia registered a comparatively slower growth of 5 ½ percent, although it must be remembered that, because of the enormous volume base, this still equated to more than 940,000 additional arrivals for the month. Stronger arrivals growth was reported by Hong Kong SAR (up 22 percent), Chinese Taipei (up 16 percent) and Japan (up 12 percent) and this offset subdued growth to China (up 1 percent), Macau SAR (up 1 percent) and Korea (ROK) (up 3 per cent). No data is available as yet for Mongolia.

International arrivals to the Pacific recorded a steady growth of 4 percent for January, but this remained uneven across the destinations. Australia and New Zealand reported foreign inbound growth of 5 percent and 4 percent respectively, while the Marshall Islands (up 12 percent), New Caledonia (up 16 percent) and Palau (up 35 percent) each saw relatively robust results. Samoa (down 2 percent) and Vanuatu (down 24 percent) on the other hand recorded contractions in arrivals for the month.