Asia Pacific sets a new record-636 million foreign arrivals in 2017
TravelBizNews —
Bangkok – Asia Pacific sets a new record with a cumulative count of 636 million foreign arrivals into the region in 2017, according to a report released today by the Pacific Asia Travel Association (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 in an effort to quantify the changing trends and patterns of international travel across the Asia Pacific region.
” Asia received the majority of these arrivals in 2017 with a 72% share, followed by the Americas with 24% and the Pacific with the remaining four percent. A similar distribution was seen for the additional volume of foreign arrivals generated into each region between 2016 and 2017′” reads a statement issued by PATA .
In total, 11 Asia Pacific destinations each received more than one million additional foreign arrivals into their respective destinations between 2016 and 2017. Only four of the 47 destinations reported declines in their inbound foreign arrival numbers, and these ranged from a minor loss of 4,000 arrivals to a much more significant contraction of nearly 3.9 million.
Overall however, the Asia Pacific region received nearly 35 million more foreign arrivals in 2017 than it did just one year earlier.
Intra-regional travel flows remained very strong for most Asia Pacific regions in 2017 with almost 94% of the foreign arrivals into Asia originating from within Asia itself. For the Americas, the intra-regional proportion of international travel was 78%.
In terms of supplier markets into Asia Pacific in 2017, the vast majority of foreign arrivals came from Asia (62%), followed by the Americas (18%) and then Europe (12%). The Pacific supplied a little over two percent of the total arrivals into Asia Pacific in 2017, followed by Africa with less than one percent.
A significant proportion of arrivals (5%) came from origin markets that were unspecified, according to PATA.
May 10, 2018
