Asia to be world's largest tourism market

In five years, Asia will overtake the United States and Europe to be the world's largest travel and tourism market, according to the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC).

The WTTC expects the industry's total contribution - including its wider economic impact - to global gross domestic product to grow by 50 per cent, to US$9 trillion (S$11.4 trillion) over the next decade. It now accounts for one in 12 jobs.

But not all segments will enjoy equal growth. While network carriers are gloomy in their outlook, tourism industry players are bright on their prospects in Asia, particularly China. And those whom MediaCorp spoke to said budget carriers can help drive their business.

Still, Banyan Tree Hotels and Resorts executive chairman Ho Kwon Ping noted: "The development of secondary and tertiary airports in the region as a whole is critical. Because a lot of the places where we want to go ... they have airports already."

He added: "Just look at Malaysia, Indonesia, India, China - they all have airports. But the gateways, the hubs, to these airports ... are still very far between."

WTTC president and chief executive officer David Scowsill pointed out that budget airlines can also benefit from more secondary and tertiary airports.

He said: "The success of low-cost carriers, principally, is that they are flying into lots and lots of smaller provincial airports. Low-cost carriers are much more flexible in terms of where they fly and how they sell their market to their customers, so they are growing very fast. In total, in Asia, the expansion is going to be enormous."

While China has cut the aviation sector growth forecast for this year, the long-term horizon is looking bright, according to industry players.

Some hoteliers are gearing up their expansion plans in China: For example, in three years, Hilton Worldwide will add 100 hotels in China. Mr Paul Brown, president of global brands and commercial services at Hilton Worldwide, reiterated that the tourism industry will do well in the near future, whatever the state of the economy.

He said: "We are certainly seeing a greater trend of tourism outbound from Asia into the rest of the world."

Source - todayonline