The executive board of the Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) released on Monday its forecasts of tourism demand across the Asia Pacific region for the next three years. At the aggregate level, international arrival numbers are predicted to increase by an average of around +2.7 percent each year to 2012. PATA said these forecasts show a significant slowing in growth rates from the pre-financial crisis level of seven percent per annum.
According to PATA chairman, Phornsiri Manoharn, the three-year projections are very much in line with expectations on how the global economy is expected to perform generally. Overall, international arrivals growth to Asia Pacific destinations are predicted to be marginal at just over one percent in 2010, rising to around 4.5 percent in 2011 and then stabilising at around four percent in 2012. PATA said these forecasts are subject to any further major economic, social or health disasters.
On a sub-regional grouping basis, destinations that in aggregate, make up South Asia are forecast to grow the fastest at an average rate of +4.9 percent per annum over the period to 2012, followed by Southeast Asia at +4.8 percent.
Northeast Asia is predicted to expand at a rate of +2.2 percent each year over that same period, while the Pacific can look to increases of around +4.0 percent per annum. North America is forecast to expand by around 1.7 percent per annum to 2012.
PATA said one significant aspect of these forecasts is that the overall growth rates will remain very much lower for the next few years and most certainly lower than has been the case in the recent past. This, in turn, heralds the need for tourism-based businesses to continue to find profits in cost containment rather than in volume growth, at least for the current three-year cycle.
“These latest authoritative forecasts from PATA reflect the reality of the current market conditions,” Manoharn said. “They point to a gradual and uneven recovery as the region picks itself up from the three percent decline in arrivals in 2009. We have witnessed significant changes in travel trends during the global economic recession. These changes have brought benefits to some and caused difficulties for others and it is clear that the next three years will prove to be both challenging and increasingly competitive for all our members.”
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