Buying patterns at a recent travel fair and statistics from the Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) show that outbound travel to Europe, US and certain ASEAN countries is still strong, and inbound from Europe to the region is forecast to grow in the next few years.

At the annual travel fair organised by the Malaysian Association of Tour and Travel Agents (MATTA) in Kuala Lumpur last weekend, there were fewer queries and less interest in Japan, usually a favourite destination among Malaysians.

Instead the “flavours” of the weekend were Europe, UK and US, with the decline in the value of the Euro and US dollar vis-à-vis the Malaysian Ringgit a main contributing factor. (The same trends were also seen at the recent NATAS Travel Fair in Singapore when Europe emerged as the top selling destination among bargain hunters in Singapore at the annual show run by the travel agents association.)

But Japan is still on many visitors’ horizon. As one of the visitors at the fair said, “We would still like to go to Japan, but at a later stage.”

In a walkabout around the MATTA travel fair, we saw numerous visitors gravitate towards ASEAN destinations especially Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos and Myanmar. “Evergreens” like China, Hong Kong and Korea are still in demand, although some visitors told us they were a bit wary of going to these countries due to the fear of radiation fallout from the quake-stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.

Malaysia is one country that expects a drop in Japanese visitors. Tourism minister Datuk Seri Dr Ng Yen Yen said there would be an immediate impact on Malaysia’s tourism industry.

“I presume it will affect us as the airports are closed. When a nation faces such a tremendous tragedy, I don’t think the people will have the mood to travel,” she said.

Japanese Ambassador to Malaysia, Masahiko Horie, was reported as saying that Malaysia was the number one choice for Japanese tourists since 2006.

In Thaland, the Thai-Japan Tourism Business Association said the expected bookings from Japan would slow until the end of this year especially from the affected prefectures, and the capital, Tokyo.

It is thus heart warming for many inbound tour operators in Asia Pacific to learn that the Europeans are still coming to the region, with numbers to rise in the next few years.

The PATA ‘Asia Pacific Tourism Forecasts 2011-13’ reveals long-haul traffic from Europe to Asia Pacific will still be significant, adding more than 8.7-million arrivals to the Asia Pacific region by 2013. In 2009 arrivals from Europe totalled 34.5 million, contributing 9.5% of the international inbound traffic to the region for that year.

                 Arrivals from Europe to Asia Pacific destinations 2009 (actual) & 2013 (forecast)                                                  –  percentage of total foreign arrivals

In terms of volume the more traditional source markets dominate namely, the Russian Federation, France, UK, Germany and Italy. The Russian Federation in particular is predicted to post a double bonus for Asia Pacific destinations – a strong growth rate and a significant volume gain.

                      Top five source markets into Asia Pacific to 2013, by volume gain

An interesting trend is the emergence of Eastern Europe markets into Asia Pacific and they include Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria, which are markets to watch over the next few years.

John Koldowski, deputy CEO and head, office of strategy management, PATA, said that while the volume growth outlook for traffic from Europe to Asia is relatively weaker than from other source regions for the next few years, “it must be recognised that Europeans rate very highly on other more sensitive measures of holiday tourism activity; they tend to stay much longer than many other source markets and also tend to spend more.”

As such, Europeans would continue to be a significant contributor to the Asia Pacific tourism balance sheet, he added.

• Charts’ source:  PATA ‘Asia Pacific Tourism Forecasts 2011-13’