ARRIVALS from Asia-Pacific were a key driver in travel to Europe in 2014 and forward bookings are indicating no let-up for the year ahead.
According to the Air Travellers’ Traffic Barometer, put together by European Cities Marketing and ForwardKeys, tourist inflows from Asia-Pacific and the Middle East helped Europe achieve 3.2 per cent year-on-year growth in arrivals for 4Q2014.
During the same period, Europe saw a sharp drop of 6.9 per cent in African arrivals partly due to the Ebola outbreak. The collapse of Russian and Ukrainian markets was largely accountable for the negative one per cent growth in intra-European travel, though this market still contributed a robust 67 per cent of arrivals in the winter season.
However, the steady rise of Asia-Pacific arrivals made up for said losses and forward bookings show that more travellers from Asia-Pacific and the Middle East are expected to visit Europe during 1Q2015 compared to the same quarter last year.
Asia-Pacific travel is forecast to leap 17.6 per cent while the Middle East is expected to show a 16.1 per cent improvement over the same quarter in 2014.
This could go some way to cover for intra-regional and African arrivals, with forward bookings showing drops of 0.3 per cent and 2.5 per cent respectively.
The report found that solo and couple travellers, last-month bookers and vacationers staying six to 13 nights took up the lion’s share of arrivals in 4Q, but the group travel and early booker segments posted breakneck growth at 32.7 per cent and 11.8 per cent accordingly.
