Asia continues to be the world economic powerhouse. According to the United Nations, by 2020, four of
the largest ten economies will be in Asia (China, India, Japan and the Republic of Korea). Asia will also account for 12 of the 22 mega cities (urban centres with more than 10 million people) by the same year.
An improved global economic performance, further uplifts of travel and visa restrictions in the region, lower transportation costs, and favourable exchange rates all contributed to the strong rebound in the region during the year 2006.
Of the 842 million arrivals in the world for the year 2006, 167.1 million were for Asia. Within Asia, North-East Asia contributed about 94 million arrivals. 53.8 million arrivals were for South-East Asia. Oceania and South Asia together accounted for about 19.3 million arrivals.
Asia and the Pacific was able to maintain its extraordinary growth level (+7.6%, compared to last year), both due to the recovery of Thailand and the Maldives from the impact of the December 2004 tsunami, as well as remarkable performances from emerging destinations in the region. International tourist arrivals in South Asia grew by 10%, boosted by India, the destination responsible for half the arrivals to the sub-region6.
There was increased competition among airlines in pricing as steps were taken by various government authorities worldwide to ease protection on their own national carriers. This resulted in lower airfares on some routes, despite a possible pass-through due to the hikes in oil prices.
The rise of the low-cost airlines offering not only lower prices but also lesser restrictions with respect to length of stay or weekend stopover, thus putting air travel within reach of groups of travelers with more limited budgets but a healthy desire for travel, also triggered tourism in the region.
Further relaxation of immigration regulations and cultural integration in the region favored intra-regional tourism, with generally lower spending levels due to shorter stays. Together with some price cutting strategies adopted by countries and corporations in the region, intraregional traffic recovered quicker than long-haul traffic, from the 2004 tsunami.
Though still the smallest of WTO’s tourism regions, South Asia has been recording consistently strong growth over the past four decades due to the growing number of new destinations on offer in the region, and the expansion of the tourism product developed in the main countries of the region. These developments have served to attract in particular the long-haul interregional tourist.
March 11, 2009 at 3:11 pm |
proved too useful!! Thanks!