ITB World Travel Trends Report: Asian Travel Demand Slows, Bright Spots Remain

As the final numbers on Asia’s 2008 tourism performance are tallied, preliminary results from different sources suggest that the winners in terms of inbound tourism included Indonesia with 17 percent and Macau with 10 percent. Southeast and South Asia tied for best performing sub-region, with average increases of 4 percent each.

Yet the general trend for Asia , usually a star performer in terms of both inbound and outbound international travel, was very mixed in 2008 due to rising fuel costs and surcharges. Inbound international arrivals growth of 6 percent from January to June 2008 turned to a 2 or 3 percent deficit in the second half, according to the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), as economic clouds gathered and the oil price hikes hit home.

Economic weakness in Asia has implications for the rest of the world. Japan is still the only Asian outbound travel market to rank among the world’s top ten source countries for travel and tourism. The Japanese made an estimated 16.5 million trips in 2008 –a 1.5 million drop on 2007.

While China 's official outbound trip count is much higher, at around 40 million, some 70 percent of these trips are to Hong Kong and Macau, special administrative regions of China. Non-Hong Kong and Macau outbound trips were 13-14 million, according to IPK. Official Chinese data says this was still 14 percent up on 2007.

More details on trends out of Asia ’s source markets, and other emerging markets around the world, will be available from the ITB Berlin Message, the annual event held during the ITB Convention on ITB Future Day, Wednesday 11 March.