Good times roll for Asia

One of the key regions for long-haul tourism is well on the road to recovery, with visitor numbers already up and confident plans for the year ahead.

Sarah Macefield

Asian countries are powering their way back with rising arrival figures and ambitious long-term expansion plans. The mood of increasing optimism was evident in the Asia halls at ITB, buoyed by hopes that last year’s downturn is behind them. Recovery has replaced recession as the new buzzword that countries such as Thailand‚ Indonesia and Sri Lanka are using to justify ambitious visitor targets and new developments. A strong finish to 2009 which has continued into this year has bolstered the tourism ambitions of destinations across the region, giving them new confidence for the future. “Early indications for 2010 are very good‚” said Tourism Malaysia deputy director-general Azizan Noordin. “We have increased our visitor target this year to 24 million from more than 23.5 million in 2009 and we do not think this will be difficult to achieve.” The Tourism Authority of Thailand, which has arrived at ITB with a message of Amazing Thailand, Amazing Value, has set itself the even more ambitious target of attracting another one million visitors this year, taking the total to 15 million.

“It is quite an aggressive goal‚” said Tanes Petsuwan, TAT’s Europe, Middle East and Africa director. “But we are confident of hitting the target and we expect about 20 per cent of the projected increase to come from Europe.” Indonesia is also confident that it will reap the benefits of its improving image. The ministry of tourism’s international promotion director, I Gde Pitana, attributed this to the country’s efforts to combat terrorism and also a visit by US president Barack Obama later this month. National airline Garuda Indonesia will re-introduce flights to Europe in June, with the restoration of a service to Amsterdam. As a result, Pitana hopes this year will bring in one million European tourists, up from last year’s figure of 690‚000.
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