According to the latest report released by the Asia Pacific Travel Association (PATA), 2022 marks a turning point in international tourist arrivals, heralding the arrival of a wave of international tourist growth in the Asia Pacific region, and operators need to prepare for the development of the industry.

According to the Asia Pacific Travel Association (PATA) 's latest Annual Travel Monitor 2023 report, after several years of decline in international visitor arrivals, 44 destinations in the Asia Pacific region attracted nearly 124.2 million international visitors in 2022, with a total of nearly 265.5 million visitors. The strongest performance since 2019.

However, the extent of recovery varies across the region. The Pacific region will see the highest year-on-year growth in 2022, while Asia will not only receive the largest number of visitors, but will also see the largest absolute growth compared to 2021. However, international visitor arrivals in the Pacific region reached the 2019 level of 57.4 percent, while those in Asia only reached the 2019 level of 27 percent. However, the growth in international arrivals that began in early 2022 has continued into early 2023, with the Asia-Pacific region registering 93.3 million new international arrivals in early 2023, a total of more than 68% over the same period in 2019.

It is worth noting that Africa, the Americas, Europe and the Pacific region, as the source of passengers to Asia-Pacific destinations, have reached a recovery rate of more than 80% in the early 2023, but Asia has only recovered to 54.2%. As Asia accounted for nearly 63% of the international visitor market in 2019 and was the main source of tourism in Asia Pacific, this issue is a major challenge for Asia Pacific operators.

Chinese tourists return to the Asia-Pacific tourism recovery is expected

With the recent relaxation of travel restrictions in China and the reopening of group Tours, the market performance is expected to improve significantly by the end of 2023.

Although the recovery rate of Asia as a source market is relatively low in the early 2023, it still increased by nearly 43 percentage points compared with the early 2022, and the growth momentum is obvious, so the performance of the whole year of 2023 is expected.

He added that the growth of Chinese tourists had so far been relatively slow, but that was expected to change quickly as most epideia-related restrictions were eased. Therefore, the current question is whether Asia Pacific destinations are ready, as the changing market conditions are not only related to the increase in the number of tourists, but also the evolving expectations and needs of tourists.

He also concluded that under PATA's medium-demand scenario, the number of international visitors to the Asia-Pacific region is expected to exceed 516 million by the end of 2023, close to the 76% level in 2019, and further increase to 107% in 2024 and 116% in 2025. As the wave of growth comes, operators must be prepared to ensure that the Asia-Pacific tourism industry is better, stronger and more resilient.