PATA releases 39 destination-specific forecast reports for 2020-2024
Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) has released another problem of a suite of 39 destination-specific forecast reports for the time 2020-2024, sponsored by Visa, with updates in response to the current coronavirus pandemic.
Each report builds on the regional forecast by delving deeper into the changing dynamics of travel and tourism, in and across the Asia Pacific region at the single destination level. The reports likewise incorporate additional data and insights from Euromonitor International.
Each one of the 39 reports covers a particular destination in Asia Pacific and individually forecasts: annual visitor arrivals into each destination, by source market; gross annual arrivals from the destination across other Asia Pacific destinations; and aggregate visitor receipts, where data availability allows.
Furthermore, each report: estimates the income and price elasticities of tourism demand; highlights some key visitor trends over the forecast period; and analyses scheduled inbound flights and seats.
Each factor describes and details how demand preferences are shifting across the Asia Pacific region. Scheduled inbound international air seat capacity for example, shifts relatively quickly according to demand, so understanding where these shifts are occurring for the almost 1.2 billion inbound air seats scheduled for Asia Pacific destinations in 2019, is a good barometer of potential demand that may translate into increased arrivals.
Obviously, with the closure of several international borders together with airports and the grounding of several commercial aircraft - entire fleets in some instances - these capacity figures are undergoing dramatic changes. However, they will probably rebound slightly ahead of visitor numbers and really should be monitored to see when and where such capacity begins to expand.
It may be reasonably expected that intra-regional air capacity is definitely the first showing substantive growth through the first stages of recovery, so here the growth in capacity between regional origins and destinations, for both Legacy and Low-Cost Carriers (LCCs), is a significant indicator to track.
Similarly, for the elasticities of both income and prices, where including the sensitivity of a specific inbound market to price changes in a destination may hold strategic value in deciding price-based programmes for that inbound market.
Income sensitivity also shows how markets may respond to changes within their own relative incomes and again offers a metric worth valuing in better understanding a potential source market. Such indicators will be extremely useful in understanding the competitive position of destinations because they pursue recovering source markets in the near future.
“We certainly are a heavily data-driven world and it is a give attention to hard data which will offer a significant advantage to those destinations that best identify and focus on those source markets that first start to visit again once this current pandemic is brought in order,” said Dr Mario Hardy, CEO, PATA.
“Budgets will tend to be very tight in the near-term, so a solid alignment of activity directed toward those source markets with the strongest prospect of conversion to visit, will be essential. Knowing those markets and when they will probably rebound with travel will be critical in delivering cost-effective results. The income and price elasticities as shown for most source markets will be an essential factor in this regard."
He further mentioned, “This updated group of destination reports from the PATA Strategic Intelligence Centre was created to present insights into the ever-present shifts and changes that occur in the travel and tourism sector so that strategic actions can be better facilitated. This is particularly so when faced, as we are now, with the extreme limitations to international tourism growth, due to COVD-19. You will have a recovery, of this we are sure - how and when that is likely to begin is one of the functions of these reports and is the one that is well served by the ‘Asia Pacific Destination Forecasts 2020-2024’.”
To get further insights and answers to questions linked to the PATA Visitor Forecasts 2020-2024 and impacts of COVID-19, PATA will be organising a webinar on, may 14, 2020 at 3 pm ICT under the title “Impact of COVID-19 on PATA Visitor Forecasts 2020-2024”. Participants will hear from guest speakers from the institution of Hotel and Tourism Management at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University and Euromonitor International.
