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