Asia Pacific travel


Plotting a recovery path in Asia Pacific

Pacific Asia Travel Association presents three varying scenarios for travel in Asia Pacific, noting that visitor arrivals in the region should exceed 2019 levels by 2024.

Photo by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash

Asia Pacific visitor arrivals should exceed 2019 levels by 2024, according to a new forecast from the Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA). However, its outlook for the next three years is clouded by uncertainty over the trajectory of recovery from the pandemic. Under its optimistic scenario, PATA predicts that travel will hit 116.21% of pre-pandemic levels in 2024 but could reach just 71.33% of 2019 figures if recovery is slower. Amid market uncertainty, the industry body has published forecasts in conjunction with Hong Kong Polytechnic University under a range of three scenarios – mild, moderate and severe pandemic impact. The latest scenario forecasts for IVAs (International Visitor Arrivals) into 39 Asia Pacific destinations between 2022 and 2024, show generally strong growth rates under the mild scenario. For the medium and severe scenarios, calendar year 2021 is “expected to be the bottom of the arrivals trough”, PATA said, with substantial annual growth rates occurring thereafter to 2024. The association said this will result in strong increases in absolute numbers of IVAs, however, only under the mild scenario is the volume of international arrivals expected to exceed that of 2019 and then only in 2024. The medium scenario predicts IVAs reaching a similar volume as that of 2019 by 2024, however, the severe scenario suggests a shortfall of almost -30% by 2024.

In absolute terms, the number of international arrivals forecast for 2022 now ranges from almost 315 million under the mild scenario, to 229 million under the medium scenario and 159 million under the severe scenario. PATA predicts that Asia (as a sub-region of Asia Pacific) will return “to a significant level of dominance”, supplying more than 64% of all IVAs into the wider region in 2024, under each of the three scenarios. The trade body cautioned that while the trends in these latest forecasts are positive, there are still challenges ahead, not the least of which will be containing the spread of the Delta and Omicron variants of COVID-19. PATA CEO Liz Ortiguera said: “International travel recovery to and within the Asia Pacific region is projected to return moderately over the next three years. Recovery will be uneven into the various sub-regions and destinations and will most likely still remain volatile over the next few years. Some individual destinations may see success but expedited recovery of the region requires a more collaborative approach. “Ministries across the region have prioritised health and safety protocols for the local community and the incoming visitors, but access to vaccines is still an issue in many destinations. PATA is advocating for more support for vaccine donations and delivery campaigns championed by the WHO Foundation and UNICEF for the COVAX initiative.” Ortiguera noted that to advance this cause, PATA recently launched a Global Travel Sector Vaccine Coalition in support of WHO Foundation and in collaboration with Virgin Atlantic and Collinson, as reported (and supported by The Moodie Davitt Report).

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The Moodie Davitt eZine Issue 305 | 31 January 2022

The Moodie Davitt eZine is published 14 times per year by The Moodie Davitt Report (Moodie International Ltd). © All material is copyright and cannot be reproduced without the permission of the Publisher. To find out more visit www.moodiedavittreport.com and to subscribe, please e-mail kristyn@moodiedavittreport.com

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