APAC arrivals continue to outstrip global average

Foreign arrivals into Asia-Pacific destinations continued to grow faster than the global average in 2017, reaching a record volume high of more than 646 million arrivals relative to 2016.

According to the Annual Travel Monitor 2018 Final Edition released by PATA today, international visitor arrivals into 47 destinations in Asia-Pacific covered in the report increased by 5.7 per cent, or close to 35 million additional arrivals.

In percentage increase terms between 2016 and 2017, the Pacific had the strongest annual increase at 5.9% year-on-year, followed by the Americas at 5.8%, while Asia kept pace with the Asia-Pacific average of 5.7%.

However, in terms of absolute increase, these positions were reversed with Asia receiving close to 25 million additional foreign arrivals between 2016 and 2017, followed by the Americas with a gain of almost 8.6 million and the Pacific with around 1.4 million additional foreign arrivals received over that period.

Across Asia it was South-east and West Asia that each captured the largest proportion of additional foreign arrivals into Asia between 2016 and 2017.

While in the Pacific, Oceania received more than half of the additional foreign arrivals into the region, followed by Polynesia.

At the individual Asia-Pacific destination level, destinations with the strongest annual percentage growth rates in 2017 ranked as per Figure 1.

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