South Asia leads arrivals growth in 2010
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The Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) has released its preliminary tourism arrival statistics for Asia Pacific for full-year 2010, which show an 11% year-on-year increase in the number of people travelling to the region.
South Asia was the strongest sub-region in terms of arrivals growth, with a year-on-year increase of 14%, allowing total visitor numbers to exceed 8.4 million. India, which captures 70% of total arrivals to the sub-region, posted a strong 9% increase to set a new record of 5.6 million international inbound visits.
Sri Lanka (+46%), the Maldives (+21%) and Nepal(+19%) also each set new arrivals records.
Arrivals to Southeast Asia were 12% higher in 2010 compared to a year earlier, reaching more than 72 million.
All destinations in the sub-region saw strong growth, with Vietnam (+35%), Singapore(+20%), the Philippines (+17%) and Thailand (+12%) particularly impressive.
Northeast Asia posted full-year arrivals growth of 11%, reaching a total inbound volume of more than 218 million.
The strong full-year performances were driven by solid results from Taiwan (+27%), Japan (+27%), Hong Kong (+22%),Mongolia (+20%) and South Korea (+13%).
Growth in the international arrivals to China was a more modest 6%, however excluding arrivals from Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan, China’s rate of growth was a more robust 19%.
Arrivals to the Pacific climbed 5% in 2010, boosted by Australia and New Zealand, which achieved record arrivals of 5.9 million and 2.5 million respectively.
“For the travel and tourism industry in Asia and the Pacific, 2010 has been a very strong year.
The results for Asia are particularly impressive, with all three sub-regions recording double-digit growth in arrivals,” said Kris Lim, Director, Strategic Intelligence Centre, PATA.
“The economic outlook for 2011 remains broadly positive but. the bulk of the inbound growth for Asia Pacific could be intra-regional going forward.”
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