Nearly 900 million visitor arrivals projected for APAC in 2023

Asia-Pacific destinations could see foreign visitor arrivals grow an average of 5.5% per annum between 2018 and 2023 to close to 900 million foreign visitor arrivals in 2023, according to projections by PATA in its Asia Pacific Visitor Forecasts 2019-2023 released last week.

Looking at 40 destinations within Asia-Pacific, the report said the overall annual growth rate for international visitors is estimated to have been around 7.8% in 2018, generating an inbound volume of around 688 million for the year – almost 50 million more foreign arrivals than in 2017.

Asia will continue its strong growth momentum with an expected annual average growth rate for foreign visitor arrivals of 6.2% between 2018 and 2023, while the Pacific and the Americas follow with average growth rates of 4.4% and 3.1% per year respectively, over the same period.

Driven by its strong average annual growth rate, Asia is expected to receive the bulk of the foreign arrivals between 2018 and 2023. After capturing a relative share of close to 74% of foreign arrivals in 2018, the proportion into Asia is expected to increase to over 76% by the end of the 2023 forecast period.

The impact on the Americas and the Pacific is a slight contraction in their respective relative shares from 22.4% in 2018 to just under 20% in 2023 for the former, and from 4% to 3.8% for the latter, even as their respective numbers of foreign arrivals increase.

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