The Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) today released preliminary tourism arrival statistics for Asia and the Pacific^[1] for calendar year 2010, showing a gain of 11% year-on-year. Compared to the corresponding month in 2009, the number of international arrivals in December 2010 was seven per cent higher.

South Asia reported the strongest sub-regional arrivals growth for the year with an aggregate gain of 14% reaching an inbound volume count of just over 8.4-million. India, which captures 70% of the total foreign arrivals to the sub-region, posted a strong nine per cent increase to set a new record of 5.6-million foreign inbound visits for the year. Sri Lanka (+46%), the Maldives (+21%) and Nepal (+19%) also each set new records in terms of visitor volumes on even stronger growth performances last year.

International arrivals to Southeast Asia were 12% higher for 2010 as compared to a year earlier, reaching a volume count of more than 72-million. All destinations in the sub-region set new arrivals records, with growth in traffic to Vietnam (+35%), Singapore (+20%), the Philippines (+17%) and Thailand (+12%) being particularly impressive.

Northeast Asia posted full-year arrivals growth of 11%, reaching a foreign inbound volume of more than 218-million. The strong full-year performances were driven by solid results from Chinese Taipei (+27%), Japan (+27%), Hong Kong (+22%), Mongolia (+20%) and Korea (ROK) (+13%), with all of these setting new records. Macau posted a strong 2010 year-end result (+15%) but is still a little behind the inbound count of 27-million set in 2007^[2].

Growth in the total international visitor inbound count for China was a more modest six per cent in 2010, however, this translates to an additional 7.3-million additional international arrivals over the 2009 count. Growth in foreign arrivals to China – that is excluding arrivals from Hong Kong, Macau and Chinese Taipei – was a more robust 19% for the year, reaching a volume of more than 26.1-million arrivals, again, another record.

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