In The Forecast

International visitor arrivals to Asia Pacific destinations will continue their growth momentum over the next five years, according to the Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) Visitor Arrivals Forecasts for the period 2015 to 2019.
Preliminary estimates indicate that the rate of growth over that period will average between 5% and 6% per annum to generate an aggregate inbound count of more than 670 million by the end of 2019.
PATA CEO Mario Hardy said: “According to the PATA Visitor Arrivals Forecasts, 38 destinations in the period 2015 to 2019 will see more than 158 million additional international visitor arrivals. Asia as a destination region will grow faster at between six and seven percent over that period and receive in excess of half a billion foreign visitors by the end of the forecast period.”
And Asia will not only benefit from this increased travel volume, It will also be a major generator of that demand both within the Asia region and well beyond. European source markets will also remain valuable to the Asia Pacific region and are expected to generate close to 50 million arrivals into the region annually by 2019.
With Hardy pointing out: “These forecasts provide a valuable quantification of the expected future trends of travel demand for the Asia Pacific and allow for risk assessments to be made well ahead of the curve. With past forecasts coming to within two percent of actual performance at the Asia Pacific level, we believe that they provide a valid and accurate tool for today’s marketers, planners and strategists as they face the volatile challenges in today’s global tourism marketplace.”

Go to http://www.PATA.org for more.