Asia has the hot spots
June 29, 2012 by TTRweekly Staff
Filed under Aviation, News, Southeast Asia
MACAU, 29 June 2012: Airlines continue to look to Asia Pacific for growth amidst global economic uncertainty as the region’s economies continue expansion, says Abacus International in its latest market report.
According to Abacus, the Asia Pacific region is now the world’s single largest aviation market as well as a growing economic powerhouse, making it crucial for airlines to be a part of this market for increased growth.
Abacus International president and CEO, Robert Bailey said: “Asia travel demand is not uniform and the trajectory of growth does not move in a straight line. In the first half of 2012, we have observed some softening of travel in key markets like India as evidenced by the challenges faced by Kingfisher.
“… Chinese airlines adopt an aggressive international expansion strategy in response to potential leakage of domestic travel demand to high speed rail.”
The report states that China and India are key players but other emerging markets beckon. The growth in travellers is not limited to China and India, with several emerging travel hotspots in Indo-China and Southeast Asia that could propel travel demand to the upside over the next decade. Front and centre in these hot regions is the tremendous growth that is expected of Myanmar and Indonesia over the next decade.
With the lifting of international sanctions, Myanmar is poised to for a surge in investments and economic transformation that would unleash the latent potential of this country and drive Indo-China travel demand even higher.
The Myanmar travel industry is currently the most underserved travel market in all of Asia and initial forecasts indicate that traveller numbers are set to increase about 300% in 2012 against 2011, with up to one million tourists expected to visit.
Outbound traffic will also grow sharply till 2016, with an expected 100% increase from 2016.
The report suggests that online travel agencies are additionally experiencing faster growth than supplier websites, leading all travel categories in terms of monthly unique visitors, attracting more than twice as many visitors as airline websites.
“Airlines need to consider how they can effectively leverage the growing online platform better. OTAs are showing continued proliferation, demonstrating that they maintain a strong channel by which airlines can broaden their customer and transaction base,” said Mr Ho. (edited press release).
