IVAs into APAC forecast to exceed pre-pandemic levels in 2024

Dhaka: International visitor arrivals into and across Asia Pacific is forecast to exceed pre-pandemic 2019 levels for the first time in 2024 under the mild scenario and by 2025 under the medium scenario, said Pacific Asia Travel Association.

PATA’s upcoming mid-year report for its Asia Pacific Visitor Forecast 2024-2026 is to be released in early July.

IVA numbers of Asia, the Americas and the Pacific have all been predicted to exceed 2019 levels in 2024, under the mild scenario. The momentum is said to continue into 2025 and 2026, with IVA numbers across all three destination regions forecast to surpass those of 2019.

However, challenges persist as the severe scenario predicts arrivals in 2024 to remain 31 per cent below 2019 levels and 13 per cent below the benchmark by 2026.

At the destination sub-region level, some very strong IVA annual growth rates are forecast for 2024 under the medium scenario, with eight of the 11 sub-regions foreseen to have annual growth rates above 10 per cent, led by Micronesia, South America and South-east Asia. For annual increases in absolute numbers of IVAs, the destination sub-regions of North-east Asia, South-east Asia and North America lead the field.

The drivers of much of this expansion in IVA numbers between 2023 and 2024 are very much the Northeast Asia source markets with China.

Over the 2023 to 2026 period, North-east Asia still dominates, with the top five source markets by additional IVAs generated all coming from that sub-region.

Specifically, seven source markets are forecast to add more than 111 million IVAs each to the Asia-Pacific count with the US being the sole source market outside North-east Asia in that ranked list.

Also, of the 258.3 million additional IVAs predicted for Asia-Pacific over that period, 60 per cent are forecast to be from Northeast Asia source markets.