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Thailand will be one of the biggest beneficiaries of more than US$100 billion in additional tourism revenues that 18 Asia Pacific destinations will receive over the next three years.
The kingdom would gain almost $13 billion by 2009, according to a report released yesterday by the Bangkok-based Pacific Asia Travel Association (Pata). Other markets likely to receive strong growth over the forecast period include Malaysia with close to $11 billion; South Korea with $7 billion, China $36 billion; and Macao with $5 billion. These findings are contained in the Asia Pacific Tourism Forecasts 2007-09 report. The predicted windfall for Thailand follows on from results of the recent Asia Travel Intentions Survey 2007, which revealed that 9% more travellers were considering Asia as their next travel destination. One in five ranked Thailand as their most likely destination with 84% of Swedish respondents most likely to consider Thailand for a holiday within the next two years. The survey was jointly conducted by Visa International Asia Pacific and Pata. "One of the fast growing regions in the world, the Asia Pacific stimulates some 60% of global tourism demand. Last year, we recorded 350 million international inbound trips _ that's almost 100 million more arrivals to Asia Pacific shores than we saw at the end of the twentieth century," said John Koldowski, the director of Pata's Strategic Intelligence Centre. Pata expects this momentum to continue in the medium-term with arrivals growth averaging around 6% per year to 2009, he noted."While inbound flows are expected to continue in the medium-term, the Asia Pacific shall remain largely an intra-regional bloc." Most of this growth will come from other Asia Pacific markets with some of these expected to show double-digit growth. Hong Kong traffic into Japan is expected to grow by 17% over the forecast period; China to Singapore by 16%; India to China by 15%; and the US and Canada to China each by 13%," he added.
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