International tourist arrivals in Asia Pacific to reduce by 32 per cent, Asia to lose US$170 billion in 2020
Travel Biz News —-
International visitor arrivals into and across Asia Pacific in 2020 are likely to reduce by 32 per cent on year-on-year basis, according to updated forecasts of Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA).
Taking into account the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, the volume of arrivals is now expected to reduce to fewer than 500 million this year. That effectively takes visitor volume back to levels last seen in 2012.
At this stage, growth is expected to resume in 2021, returning to forecast levels by 2023. Much of course, depends on how quickly and completely the COVID-19 pandemic is contained and controlled, PATA stated in a press release issued this week.
The impacts are expected to be most severe in Asia, especially Northeast Asia, which is now predicted to lose almost 51 per cent of its visitor volume between 2019 and 2020 (most likely scenario), followed by South Asia with a reduction of 31 per cent , and then Southeast Asia with a 22 per cent drop in visitor arrivals.
West Asia is projected to lose almost six percent in visitor arrivals, followed by the Pacific with a projected contraction of 18 per cent, and the Americas with a loss of a little under 12 per cent
Recovery rates relative to 2019 are expected to occur in most destination regions/sub-regions in 2020, however, Northeast Asia is likely to take a little longer and exceed the 2019 volume of arrivals in 2022.
The same is essentially true for visitor receipts as well as they are expected to drop by 27 per cent between 2019 and 2020 under the most likely scenario, reducing to US$594 billion, significantly below the original 2020 forecast of US$811 billion.
“Asia is expected to lose more than US$170 billion (-36 per cent), with Northeast Asia predicted to lose more than US$123 billion (-48 per cent ) under this most likely scenario, followed by South Asia with a US$13.3 billion loss (-33 per cent ) and Southeast Asia with a US$34.6 billion shortfall (-20 per cent). The Americas is projected to lose more than US$35 billion (-13 per cent) and the Pacific US$18 billion (-18 per cent),” PATA stated.
April 23 , 2020
Photo : Hong Kong / Travel Biz News
