Asian tourism at all-time high despite terror fear
Asian tourism at all-time high despite terror fear
Agence France-Presse, Bangkok
Asian tourism has bounced back to an all-time high despite concerns over terrorism and outbreaks of the deadly bird flu virus, the Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) said on Thursday.
PATA director John Koldowski said tourist arrivals had risen 27 percent over the past five years, with all countries in the Asia-Pacific region reporting strong tourism growth this year.
"China led the way, reporting 61 million arrivals between January and July this year compared to 49.1 million last year," Koldowski told AFP during a regional travel industry convention drawing 1,000 delegates to Bangkok.
He said tourism arrivals to the Indonesian island of Bali had risen almost 61 percent over the same period. Bali's tourism industry was devastated by a bomb attack by regional terror group Jamaah Islamiyah in 2002 which claimed more than 200 lives.
The Indonesian capital Jakarta was hit by a deadly car bomb on September 9, but Koldowski said tourists have begun to steel themselves to terror threats.
"It's still too early to tell, but it seems that incidents such as the one that happened in Jakarta are having minimal impact on tourism," he said.
"This is the best year we have ever seen and we are still seeing strong growth since the start of 2004."
South Asia, which is traditionally a slower region in terms of tourism growth, has risen as well with India up 26 percent, Nepal up 28 percent and the Maldives up 15 percent this year.
Koldowski said the region had also fully recovered from the negative impacts of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and bird flu.
SARS killed almost 800 people, mostly in Hong Kong and China, in a worldwide outbreak last year that infected more than 8,000, while bird flu has killed 28 people this year in Vietnam and Thailand.
"People are very aware of factors such as these and may modify their travel a bit but they have become used to it, more desensitized and have the overall risks more in perspective," he said.
A series of budget airline startups such as AirAsia has fueled much of the regional travel boom, according to Koldowski.
The Malaysia-based AirAsia, which began in 2001 with just two planes, now operates a fleet of Boeing 737-300 aircraft throughout Brunei, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand.
Its success has sparked several other local budget carriers such as Singapore's Valuair and Tiger Airways, as well as Thailand's Nok Air.