PATA: Travel demand for the Asia Pacific to grow by 4.6% p/a out to 2020

Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) released (21-Apr-2016) its 'Pacific Visitor Forecasts 2016-2020', projecting international visitor demand into the Asia Pacific region will grow at an average rate of 4.6% p/a, to reach in excess of 647 million visits by 2020. According to the PATA report:

• Asia will continue to increase its relative dominance of foreign arrivals into the Asia Pacific region through to 2020, increasing its relative share of these arrivals from 72% in 2015 to better than 73% by 2020;
• • The absolute volume of arrivals into the Asia Pacific generally is predicted to rise from 528 million to 647 million over the same period;
• Southeast Asia will continue with its "dramatic" rise in foreign arrivals, improving its relative share from just under 20% in 2015 to around 22.5% by 2020, when it will rival the share of the Americas at that time (22.6%);
• Asia will also continue to generate more international arrivals into the Asia Pacific, increasing its count from 355 million visitors in 2015 to around 448 million by the end of 2020. That will see the Asian component of arrivals into Asia Pacific - as defined in this summary report - increase from 66% (2015) to over 68%by 2020;
• Northeast Asia remains the workhorse for Asia Pacific, generating an expected 333 million international arrivals into the region in 2020 - more than half of the total foreign inbound volume expected;
• Intra-regional flows will continue to remain strong for most of the Asia Pacific regions, but across the region, the influence of the Asian source market is undeniable and will only grow stronger, at least in the majority of cases;
• The Americas and Europe will continue to play important roles in Asia Pacific travel and tourism, not just in the volume of arrivals they each generate but also in terms of additional metrics that they bring to the sector - more for some destinations than others, but still significant none the less;
• • The Americas is expected to generate around 113 million arrivals into the Asia Pacific region in 2020 driven largely by North America which will contribute close to two-thirds of that volume in its own right;
  • 47 million arrivals are expected from Europe in 2020, primarily from West Europe (19.5 million) and North Europe (14.7 million). These two origin sub-regions will generate close to two-thirds of the total arrivals from Europe by the end of the forecast period. [more - original PR]