FORGET the tumultous 2014, Asia-Pacific can look forward to a good 2015 with socioeconomic forces working in tourism’s favour. EyeforTravel identified five distinct forces that will influence international tourism in a white paper recently released.
First, the sustained dip in oil prices spells good news in terms of a lower overall cost of living, from potentially lower air fares to deflationary pressures increasing average disposable income.
Next, tourism stakeholders can compete well with the judicious use of social, good apps and mobile services to connect with the continuing force of digitally driven, well-informed, and social consumers.
The third trend pertains to China’s continuing influence, with AttractChina projecting 140 million Chinese tourists spending US$188 billion abroad in 2015. Localised issues such as Thailand’s political unrest and Malaysia Airlines’ flight disasters last year had limited impact, given that Chinese arrivals to the region began to rise again end-2014.
Meanwhile, the low-cost longhaul market has hugely untapped potential and is expected to grow, and the region could well leverage the fact that its potential longhaul audience is sited in an area of high population density comprising multiple nations.
Finally, there is evidence that inbound tourism will grow from further afield, although the majority of longhaul customers are expected to come from China, Australia and India. The US, for example, is projected to increase outbound travel by six per cent in 2015 – albeit not much of this to Asia-Pacific – the region can well tap into this market through a deal of communication work.
