The Pacific Asia Travel Association’s (PATA) Annual Travel Monitor 2007, published by the Association’s Strategic Intelligence Centre (SIC), states that almost 376 million IVAs (international visitor arrivals) were recorded last year – up from around 347 million in 2006.
The strongest year-on-year growth performance in 2007 was in Southeast Asia, a region which includes traditional tourist and traveler hotspots such as Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia, with a 12.2 percent increase. However, all destination sub-regions in Asia showed encouraging levels of growth.
The top ten performing destinations in 2007 were led by Papua New Guinea, although the recorded growth of 34 percent against 2006 is off a relatively small numeric base. Interestingly, four Pacific island nations make the 2007 top ten.
PATA’s Strategic Intelligence Director John Koldowski is full of praise for destinations across the region. ‘We’ve witnessed some very imaginative and inventive promotional campaigns from NTOs, airlines, hotels and tour operators – all keen to grab a bigger slice of the Asia Pacific travel cake – and these campaigns are reflected in some very positive numbers.
It’s not all good news for Asia Pacific destinations however. Sri Lanka for example, showed an alarming dip in arrivals with an 11.7 per-cent decrease on 2006, reflecting increased regional competition and certain domestic issues which influenced traveller choice.
Source: travelindustrywire.com