TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) had just released its data forecasting one billion international visitor arrivals (IVA) in the region for the next five years. This was mentioned in the Asia Pacific Visitor Forecasts 2020-2024 report.

As of the 2024 forecast suggests, Asia Pacific will likely be visited by 971 million people which assumes heavily on the average annual growth rate (AAGR) of 5.3 percent between 2014 - 2019, which is predicted to increase in the next five years to 6.3 percent between 2019 - 2024.

Taking PATA’s expected figures as a baseline, this will result in the rise of 256 million additional IVAs into the region between 2019 and 2024, which marks a notable increase over the additional volume of 162 million its research shows was added between 2014 and 2019.

Asia is forecast to remain the dominant destination region within the whole of Asia Pacific and the Americas combined and is likely to improve its relative share to over 77% by 2024, from 74.84% in 2019. America is forecast to hold second place, although PATA said its share is expected to reduce slightly over the period between 2019 and 2024 (a predicted fall from 21.27% to 19.4%).

China will head the list of Asia Pacific destinations by strongest IVA increase over the period 2019 to 2024, according to the PATA predictions. The country is expected to add around 38.2 million more annual arrivals to its inbound count in 2024 compared to 2019, raising its aggregate volume to almost 208 million.

Japan is ranked second by PATA, followed by Macau and then Mexico, with all of these destinations expected to receive more than 20 million additional foreign arrivals each, over the forecast period to 2024.

Reflecting on the forecasts, Pacific Asia Travel Association CEO Dr. Mario Hardy said there is an immediate and necessary shift for many destinations from generating arrivals to properly managing those visitors.

The Moodie Davitt Report | LUDHY CAHYANA