China’s Outbound Travel Drives Asian Growth in Arrivals

By James Ruggia : Travelpulse

Travelers from a booming outbound Chinese travel market have sent Asia/Pacific arrivals high into the black in the first half of 2013, according to the latest figures from the Pacific Asia Travel Association. The Asia/Pacific region received 7.7 million additional international arrivals on the back of a growth rate for the period of 4.5 percent (year-on-year) in the first six months.

June came in with a 6 percent overall increase over last June. In June, Southeast Asia led the region with a strong double-digit growth, but all sub-regions reported growth in the month. Ironically, international arrivals into China continued to decline, the fourth monthly contraction so far this year.

Northeast Asia arrivals grew 5 percent with Japan, the star performer, reporting an inbound gain of 32 percent. Second in the growth line-up, Hong Kong, Korea (ROK) and Macau showed double-digit growth rates of 16 percent, 12 percent and 10 percent respectively. Arrivals into mainland China fell by 2 percent and generated a loss of more than 240,000 visits for the month.

South Asia also grew 5 percent in arrivals, with the Maldives reporting 29 percent increase followed by Sri Lanka at 13 percent and India at 3 percent. India accounted for 37 percent of the increased volume of additional arrivals into the sub-region during the month.

Southeast Asia grew 11 percent with more than 470,000 additional arrivals to the collective inbound count for the sub-region. Myanmar, Vietnam and Thailand were the best performing destinations in the region with growth of 67 percent, 36 percent and 25 percent respectively. Myanmar grew 86 percent with mainland Chinese tourist's numbers more than doubling year-on-year.

International arrivals to the Pacific grew 6 percent. Australia and New Zealand drove the growth with gains of 7 percent and 6 percent respectively. Other major destinations such as Guam and Hawaii also grew 6 percent.