PATA Paper for Thailand Chapter1
In terms of international visitor arrivals, 2007 is proving to be a very strong year for the
ASEAN countries with figures year-to-date growing by more than 12% year-on-year, to reach
an inbound collective volume of close to 47 million and continuing the bull run that began
post-SARS in 2004 (Chart 1).
Chart 1: Aggregate IVAs to Southeast Asia, 2003 to 2007, in millions
36.6
38.2
41.8
46.9
26.4
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
Year-to-date
In percentage gain terms this is the strongest relative growth performance across all the Asia
Pacific sub-regions, although of course the volumes into Southeast Asia are much less than
the flows into Northeast Asia and the Americas (Chart 2).
Chart 2: IVAs into each of the Asia Pacific Sub-regions, Year-on-Year Growth (%), Year-to-date 2007
12.2%
8.7%
7.6%
4.5%
0.8%
Southeast Asia
Northeast Asia
South Asia
Americas
Pacific
None-the-less the performance is very robust and is more than double to global growth rate of
around 5.6% year-to-date.
1
Note: aggregate figures relating to the ASEAN bloc of countries exclude Brunei as a destination due to a lack of
data; all arrivals data is sourced from the relevant NTOs and/or National Statistical Agencies and compiled by PATA
By individual destination country, the performances differ of course in terms of volume and or
percentage gain, but the fact remains that all are positive for the year so far (Table 1).
Table 1: Year-to-date International Arrivals into Southeast Asia Destinations, 2007 & 2006
Southeast Asia
Cambodia
Indonesia
Lao (PDR)
Malaysia
Myanmar
Philippines
Singapore
Thailand
Vietnam
Total Southeast Asia
Period
Jan-Oct
Jan-Oct
Jan-Jul
Jan-Sep
Jan-Oct
Jan-Sep
Jan-Oct
Jan-Sep
Jan-Nov
2006
1,252,673
3,248,265
687,598
12,903,178
200,320
2,085,783
8,045,745
10,092,740
3,260,000
41,776,302
2007
1,490,215
3,706,632
887,842
15,648,292
211,767
2,265,993
8,434,131
10,405,520
3,817,564
46,867,956
% change
19.0
14.1
29.1
21.3
5.7
8.6
4.8
3.1
17.1
12.2
Note 1: Data for Indonesia is through 15 main ports of entry, not total arrivals
Note 2: Data for Thailand excludes Thai nationals living overseas
Note 3: Data for Singapore excludes arrivals from Malaysia by road/rail
Malaysia is worthy of note since it is performing exceptionally strongly on both fronts; the
percentage gain year-to-date is better than 21 % and the additional volume added already
equates to more than 2.7 million arrivals.
Within some destinations, there are signs of strong growth as well. Sarawak for example has
posted a gain to July of 19% while in Indonesia the island of Bali has seen foreign direct
arrivals grow by more than 34% in the ten months to October 2007.
The strongest performing origin markets into the ASEAN bloc so far this year are listed in
Chart 3 below
Chart 3: Origin Markets to ASEAN Year-to-date, by Volume Gain over 2006 (corresponding periods)2
Singapore
628,773
Indonesia
443,177
Origin country
Brunei
259,555
India
224,112
Australia
210,824
China (PRC)
203,611
Korea (ROK)
198,987
Lao PDR
182,601
France
116,937
Vietnam
113,369
In using additional volume of visits generated rather than percentage growth, it is interesting
to note not only the strong performance by Asian source markets – 8 of the top 10 performers
– but also the strong intra-ASEAN flows.
At this stage fully half of the top ten performing source markets, by volume, are ASEAN
markets, with Singapore, Indonesia and Brunei taking the top three spots respectively.
2
Note: Brunei and Indonesia are excluded due to a lack of detailed origin data at the time of writing
Certainly this may change somewhat when data for Brunei and Indonesia are factored in, but
probably only to reinforce the very strong intra-ASEAN flows.
It is not just the inbound arrivals numbers that are improving either. Figures from the Deloitte
Hotel Benchmark Survey to October 2007 show a generally strong year-to-date performance
in hotel operating measures, particularly average daily room rates (ARR) and revenue per
available room (RevPAR) as can be seen from Table 2, although this is not consistent across
all locations measured.
Table 2: Hotel Operation Statistics, Jan-Oct 2007, Year-on-Year Change3
Location/city
Bali
Jakarta
Surbaya
Kuala Lumpur
Penang
Manila
Singapore
Bangkok
Phuket
Hanoi
Ho Chi Minh City
Jan-Oct 2007, change
Occupancy
ARR
RevPAR
16.7
12.9%
48.0%
7.0
5.1%
18.5%
-1.6
4.6%
2.1%
0.1
10.0%
10.2%
-5.6
26.9%
15.8%
3.2
12.1%
16.9%
3.8
17.8%
23.4%
-3.4
-2.2%
-6.6%
11.4
3.7%
22.9%
1.7
29.6%
32.4%
7.5
32.5%
47.4%
Into the future, expectations are for not only the ASEAN destinations to continue with strong
growth, but for stronger ASEAN-to-ASEAN flows to remain the norm rather then be the
exception, particularly as air liberalisation and surface access routes both continue to grow.
-------------------------------------------------------------12/11/2007
© Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) 2007.
3
Note: Occupancy rate change is in percentage point difference while ARR and RevPAR are % changes; all
measures are based on local currencies; source: Deloitte Hotel Benchmark Survey 2007