PATA forecast 7.5pc growth for top Asia-Pacific destinations

The Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) on Wednesday announced its forecasts of travel demand for 42-destinations within the Asia Pacific region, predicting an annual average rate of growth in arrivals to these destinations of just under seven per cent between 2009 and 2013.
South Asia is predicted to receive 7.5 per cent growth, according to the forecast.Asia is expected to receive much of this growth, with an average increase of around 7.5 per cent per annum. North America will average around five per cent and the Pacific four-to-five per cent, over that period.
Within Asia, the fastest growing sub-region will be Southeast Asia, with just over eight per cent, followed by South Asia with around 7.5 per cent, and Northeast Asia at just over seven per cent per annum.
Around 15 source regions will generate double-digit growth for Asia-Pacific over the period to 2013, with intra-Asia traffic alone fuelling annual gains of around 7.5 per cent and adding more than 76-million additional arrivals to Asia by 2013.
The ones to watch out for here are South and Central Asia into Northeast Asia (17 per cent and 14 per cent gains per annum respectively), as well as the Middle East markets, which are also tipped to show substantial growth with gains in excess of 10 per cent per annum to 2013.In terms of generating the most physical arrivals however, it is Northeast Asia and the Americas that will generate most additional traffic to Asia-Pacific. Northeast Asia will add an additional 65-million arrivals to Asia-Pacific destinations by 2013, while North America will add close to 18-million more than in 2009.
This will all be largely intra-regional growth. However, with around 83 per cent of the additional arrivals from North America heading to destinations within the Americas, while just under 80 per cent of the additional growth from Northeast Asia will be to destinations within Northeast Asia.
"This is not surprising, particularly given the enormous rise in air seat capacity on the intra-Asia routes, especially from the so-called low-cost carriers," John Koldowski, deputy CEO and head, Office of Strategy Management, PATA, said, adding that the shift in source markets carries a significant number of issues for operators in the region.
"Many of the long-haul markets have relatively longer lengths of stay, therefore, any decrease in arrivals from these sources, even though relative, will be felt in terms of nights booked and quite possibly yield,” he added.

European visitor volume
KATHMANDU: Visitors from Europe are a substantial component of the Asia Pacific arrivals count, generating 34.5-million visits in 2009; some 9.5 per cent of the international inbound volume to the region for that year. While the relative share of arrivals from Europe is forecast to drop to around 9.1 per cent of the total inbound volume by 2013, the actual numeric count will rise to more than 44-million arrivals from a base of 35.5-million in 2009, averaging annual growth of between five-to-six per cent over that period. The impact of European arrivals varies greatly across the sub-regions and destinations within the Asia Pacific region however, as can be seen by the actual and expected relative shares in 2009 and 2013 respectively. Of the almost 500 individual origin-destination pairs from Europe to Asia Pacific destinations, more than a quarter (26.8 per cent) are forecast to grow at an average annual rate in excess of 10 per cent between 2009 and 2013. Some of the European markets to watch over the next few years in terms of rate of growth are shown below. Of particular interest is the emergence of the Eastern Europe markets into Asia Pacific.