Asia drives international arrivals in ASPAC region

MANILA, Philippines — Asia continued to fuel arrivals into the Asia Pacific region last year accounting for almost 64 percent of the total, the Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) said.

Based on PATA’s Annual Tourism Monitor 2019 Early Edition, the Asia Pacific region registered almost 700 million international visitor arrivals in 2018.

“For a number of years now, arrivals out of Asia have been generating more than 60 percent of all arrivals into and across Asia Pacific, with that figure now oscillating between 63 percent and 64 percent over the last three years to 2018,” the PATA said.

It said Northeast Asia is fueling the current momentum, with almost three-quarters or 74.36 percent of arrivals out of Asia into Asia Pacific in 2018, originating from within that sub-region.

“From an origin region perspective for example, it is evident that the proportion of arrivals into Asia Pacific destinations has, at the aggregate level at least, been continuously favoring Asia between 2014 and 2018, generally at the expense of the other origin regions,” the PATA said.

In addition, the report also cited Southeast Asia as significant generator of arrivals, accounting for a 15.53 percent share of the total.

This secures the dominance of East Asia region, which supplied almost 90 percent of the visitor arrivals into and across Asia Pacific in 2018.

From a local perspective, arrivals from East Asia accounted for more than half of foreign arrivals in the Philippines last year at 53.92 percent totaling to 3.8 million arrivals, data from the Department of Tourism (DOT) showed.

This is mainly driven by arrivals from the country’s top source markets Korea, China and Japan.

The PATA earlier said it projects international visitor arrivals in Asia Pacific to hit 900 million by 2023, driven by tourists from Asia, particularly China.

“By 2023, it is expected that China will further consolidate its position as the number one destination in Asia Pacific, capturing more than 22 percent of the nearly 900 million foreign arrivals expected into the region in that year,” the PATA earlier said.

For this year, international visitor arrivals in the Asia Pacific region may reach close to 728.4 million in 2019, over 40 million more than the volume received in 2018.