Asia-Pacific received a record 636 million foreign arrivals in 2017, with the fastest-growing destinations being Vietnam, Turkey and Nepal, according to a report released yesterday by PATA.
Covering 47 destinations across the region with eight in the Americas, 15 in the Pacific and 24 across Asia, the PATA Annual Tourism Monitor 2018 Early Edition reviews foreign arrivals over the past five years.
PATA CEO Mario Hardy noted: “2017 was yet another record year for the aggregate volume of foreign arrivals into Asia-Pacific… 30 of the 47 destinations covered in this report showing annual growth in excess of five per cent – in fact 17 of these were in the double-digit growth range, with only a few showing contractions.”
Asia received the majority of arrivals into APAC in 2017 with a 72 per cent share, followed by the Americas with 24 per cent and the Pacific with the remaining four per cent.
Overall, the region received nearly 35 million more foreign arrivals in 2017 than it did one year earlier. Only four of the 47 destinations reported declines in their inbound foreign arrival numbers, ranging from 4,000 to nearly 3.9 million.
Intra-regional travel flows remained strong for most Asia-Pacific regions in 2017, with almost 94 per cent of the foreign arrivals into Asia originating from within the region itself. For the Americas, the intra-regional proportion of international travel was 78 per cent.
The Pacific went against this trend however, with less than one-third (32 per cent) of its foreign arrivals in 2017 originating from within the Pacific region; more than half (53 per cent) of the foreign arrivals into the Pacific in that year came from Asian origin markets.
In terms of supplier markets into Asia-Pacific in 2017, the vast majority of foreign arrivals came from Asia (62 per cent), followed by the Americas (18 per cent) and then Europe (12 per cent).
The Pacific supplied a little over two per cent of the total arrivals into Asia-Pacific in 2017, followed by Africa with less than one per cent. A significant proportion of arrivals (five per cent) came from origin markets that were unspecified.
There were 14 origin markets that each generated in excess of 10 million arrivals into Asia-Pacific in 2017.
