Issue #138 - This Week's Top 8 Travel & Tourism Talking Points in... Asia Pacific!
Hot takeaways from China, Japan, Malaysia, South Korea, Thailand and more.
Welcome to issue 138 of Asia Travel Re:Set.
Thailand and Japan are tearing up tourism in Asia Pacific. Thailand has attracted 11 million arrivals so far in 2024. Japan is close behind.
Japan’s tourism surge is despite - not driven by - China. In Q1, total arrivals from China to Japan fell 38.8% from the same 2019 level.
As I noted on The South East Asia Travel Show, you can read this in 2 ways:
Glass half empty: The Chinese are not travelling to Japan in the same volume.
Glass half full: The Chinese are not as yet travelling to Japan in the same volume.
There is still plenty of the market to come back.
Thanks for checking-in.
- “IN THE NEWS”
- This Week's Top 8 Travel & Tourism Talking Points in Asia Pacific!
Hot takeaways from China, Japan, Malaysia, South Korea, Thailand and more.
- Top 8 Statistical Talking Points in South East Asian Tourism
Key developments from Thailand, Singapore & Vietnam, plus China & Japan.
“IN THE NEWS”
Is the revamped, 3-week Songkran festival a savvy initiative by Thailand to drive tourism during the off-peak period? Or does it risk diluting the cultural resonance of Songkran and "turn it into a less meaningful event across a longer period?" Maybe elements of both? Thanks to Tommy Walker for including my comments in this thoughtful piece. Click HERE to read.
This Week’s Top 8 Travel & Tourism Talking Points in Asia Pacific!
Source: JNTO
This week’s top regional story was Japan’s record-breaking March inbound arrivals. Some 3,081,600 visitors - a monthly record- marked an 11.6% rise from March 2019. Almost 3-quarters, 73.9%, of visitors (see above) last month hailed from Asian nations. From January-March, Japan’s top 5 visitor markets are South Korea, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and the US. Only 3 of the top 22 markets, Thailand, China and Russia, recorded negative growth compared to the same 2019 period.
Next to China, where expectations are high that domestic and outbound travel volumes for the upcoming May (1-5) holiday will comfortably surpass 2019. The anticipation is summed up by this SCMP headline: China preps for tourism boom on May Day holiday as early bookings rocket past pre-pandemic levels. Meanwhile, airlines in China carried 180 million passengers in Q1, “a 10.2% increase” compared to 2019.
This week (13 April) marked the 1-year anniversary since cross-border trips were launched on the China-Laos railway. Official data shows 110,962 passenger trips between the neighbouring countries across the 12 months. The railway, which was completed in December 2021 - during the pandemic - represents the first phase of the proposed China-ASEAN rail network (see issue 137)
Should South East Asian destinations start paying closer attention to China’s Hainan Island as an emerging competitor? Given its location, resort infrastructure, duty-free retail innovations, visa-free access and fine beaches, the answer is: yes. This week, Hainan said it plans to launch the "Hainan wallet". This would enable visitors to exchange currency for e-RMB, which will be transferred to their mobile phone. They can then make payments via Alipay and WeChat Pay POS while on vacation.
Next to Thailand, and - more specifically - Phuket. Or, more accurately, the sky above. A breakout craze for after-dark stargazing among young people in Asia during the pandemic was well documented. Then it went quiet. No longer, according to this piece in Travel Weekly Asia. An Anantara resort is pairing a rooftop bar / restaurant with a Sky Observatory. The cocktail menu is, of course, “inspired by constellations.”
Feverish speculation surrounds a “Schengen-style” ASEAN travel visa proposed by Thailand. Only 6 - Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar and Vietnam - of ASEAN’s 10 members are included, all in mainland South East Asia. Brunei, Indonesia, Singapore and the Philippines are excluded. Given the lack of ASEAN integration to reopen borders after the pandemic, scepticism abounds. Moreover, ASEAN as a 10-member block doesn’t have the central institutions to enact and manage such a visa, let alone a sub-section of its membership. A long shot.
Neighbouring Malaysia has been transfixed this week by a shooting at KLIA arrivals hall in the early hours of Sunday. The male suspect allegedly fired at his wife, a travel agent, who was waiting for returning clients to arrive at the airport. The shot injured her bodyguard. After a bizarre set of circumstances, he was arrested in the northern town of Kota Bharu while apparently “making arrangements to leave the country.”
And finally… to South Korea, where Exam Tourism is making waves. Chinese student study groups are increasingly travelling to the country “to take English proficiency exams like IELTS and TOEFL due to a scarcity of testing facilities in China,” reports The Chosen Daily. One to add to the lexicon.
Top 8 Statistical Talking Points in South East Asian Tourism
Travel and tourism in South East Asia are heavily stat-driven as 2019 catch-up milestones are tracked and press-released. This week, we assess 8 hot numerical topics from Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand to Vietnam, China and Japan. We deconstruct 2023’s 100 million arrivals to South East Asia, analyse the Q1 figures in key markets, and discuss the magnetism of Japan for South East Asian travellers.
Plus, when will Vietnam's 2 high-speed rail lines to China begin construction? And, how many passengers rode the China-Laos railway in its first 12 months?
Listen to ‘The Top 8 Statistical Travel & Tourism Talking Points in South East Asia’, here:
Or search for The South East Asia Travel Show on any podcast platform
And, that’s a wrap for Issue 138.
The Asia Travel Re:Set newsletter will return next Sunday.
Until then, find me at LinkedIn and The South East Asia Travel Show
Happy travels,
Gary