Singapore

Singapore tourism rebounded during 1999 with total arrivals rising by +14.5% to 6,958,173. All regions ended the year with positive growth in visitor arrivals. Visitors from the long-haul regions of Europe and the Americas posted increases of +6.8% and +4.4% respectively. Africa registered the strongest increase of +13.9% in visitor traffic, albeit on a small base, followed closely by Asia (+43.6%). The number of visitors from Oceania grew a further +8.6%.

The strong performance was mainly boosted by positive year-on-year growth in arrivals from nine of the top twelve markets. Key markets which generated significant visitor numbers included Indonesia, the UK, China (PRC) and India.

China (PRC) and India were the best performers for 1999, registering almost consistent growth in arrivals over high bases every month. China generated +27.1% more visitors to Singapore over last year; the strong performance largely attributable to affordable tour packages in the market that spurred interest in travel within the region. Arrivals from India were also up by an encouraging +18.3%.

Reflecting the growth in visitor arrivals to Singapore, hotel occupancy rates improved steadily throughout Indonesia the year, up by an overall +3.4 percentage points over 1998. The average room rate was however down by -12.5%  hovering around SG$120.00 throughout 1999.
 

Preliminary data on the Singapore Hotel Sector Performance January - December 1999 indicates maximum room nights were 10.95m (-0.2%); available room-nights reached 10.18m (+1.4%). Gross lettings reached 7.61m (+6.3%); paid lettings reached 7.52m (+6.5%); standard AOR (Average Occupancy Rate) reached 74.7% (up 3.4 percentage points over the same period last year); standard ARR (Average Room Rate) was SG$120.30 (-12.5%).

The highlight of 1999 was the MilleniaMania campaign that was launched at the World Travel Market in London in November 1998 and involved seven months of intense activities, culminating with a huge and widely-televised party on Orchard Road. Its MICE events rose +25% in 1999 and the total number of cruise passengers rose by +2.8% based on a +4 8% increase in the number of ships calling.

For 2000, the STB is forecasting visitor arrivals of 7.3 million. The food festivals and sales will be continued and enhanced further with runs of international theatre performances, films, arts and comedy festivals. The MICE business will be further enhanced with the April 2000 opening of a massive new convention and exhibition centre that will be launched with the Singapore Expo. 

About 90 international conventions have been confirmed under its GlobalMeet programme. Product development is also continuing in full swing, both within the country as well of packages linking Singapore with the Mekong sub-region.

Thailand

The Amazing Thailand campaign, which was launched to commemorate the King's 72nd birthday, proved exceptionally successful over its two year life span from 1998-1999. Preliminary figures for 1999 show the volume of international arrivals reached 8.65 million (+10.3%) with foreign  exchange  earnings expected to reach 309.6 billion baht (approximately US$8.15 billion), up +28% over 1998. Domestic trips are projected at 53.3 million and domestic visitor spending at 201 billion baht.

The King's auspicious sixth-cycle birthday celebrations were highly successful with lavish and colourful events held nationwide and televised globally. Several major international magazines featured the King in their cover stories.

A major landmark of the Amazing Thailand campaign was the arrival of the one-millionth Japanese visitor to Thailand on Christmas Day 1999. Amazing Thailand 1998-1999 was designed to steer Thailand away from the promotion of mass market tourism into niche markets and focus on the tremendous travel and tourism variety of Thailand, especially its food, shopping attractions, health and culture. This is very much in line with global travel trends as travellers become more sophisticated and repeat travel by individuals and small groups of families and friends replaces mass market tourism.

The campaign for the year 2000 is designed to build upon the success of Amazing Thailand by highlighting the country's cultural heritage, culinary delights, shopping and recreational facilities. It maintains the Amazing Thailand marketing theme - line but supports it with a new slogan: "Enchantment for the Next Thousand Years." The campaign capitalises on a trend in which most of the holiday-makers of the future will be among the ranks of stressed-out city dwellers looking to get away from their hectic lives. A relatively new theme will be following up the King's call to create a "sufficiency economy" for Thailand in the new millennium, with tourism playing its role accordingly.
 

In 2000, the TAT is targeting visitor arrivals of 8.8 million and foreign exchange earnings of 343.5 billion baht. Domestic trips are projected at 55.05 million and expenditure 228.3 billion baht. That would make travel and tourism a roughly 570 billion baht (approximately US$15 billion) industry in 2000.

Vietnam

Tourism has been playing a significant role in Vietnam's economy. Since 1990, while national economic growth has averaged about +7% a year, the number of foreign visitors travelling to Vietnam has been growing by about +30% per year, generating revenues that constitute an average of 4% of GDP and creating roughly 150,000 jobs for the country.

During 1990 there were 250,000 international arrivals to Vietnam. By 1995 this had risen to 1.35 million and by the end of 1999 to 1.78 million showing a solid rebound from the slump of 1998 (4.52 million in 1998 from 4.72 in 1997) caused (at least in part) by the economic crisis in the region at that time. Individual source markets have also changed. At the end of 1993 the USA dominated individual source countries with a relative share of just over 30%. China (PRC) at that time held a share just under 3%. By the end of 1999 however, those positions had been reversed dramatically China (PRC) now holds the dominant share (27%) while the USA has fallen back (in relative terms) to just under 12%. In that space of time the actual numbers of arrivals from China (PRC) have skyrocketed from 17,500 in 1993 to 484,100 in 1999.

The Vietnamese government is paying more serious attention to the industry The plan is to "Step by step, turn Vietnam into a sizeable centre of tourism, trade and services in the region." The target is two million international arrivals and 11 million domestic arrivals for 2000 and 6 - 7 million international arrivals and 22 million domestic arrivals by 2010.

In the last 12 months, the country has promulgated a Tourism Ordinance; established a high-level State Steering Committee for Tourism headed by a Deputy Prime Minister and involving concerned ministries and government agencies into tourism development process; and launched the National Tourism Program of Actions and Tourism Events for 2000 aimed at recreating and maintaining a new tourism image of Vietnam. Recent developments have included the start of direct international flights from Bangkok to Da Nang, gateway to the World Heritage Sites of Hue, Hoi An and My Son Sanctuary

The Next Few Years

Past performances are one thing but of course we all need to peer a little way into the future and see what might be in store for us. As luck would have it, two world-renowned academics and researchers have done just that. Associate Professor Lindsay W. Turner and Professor Stephen F. Witt have recently released a report entitled "Asia Pacific Tourism Forecasts 2000-2004," published by Tourism and Travel Intelligence (London) and have very kindly allowed PATA to preview the findings of their econometric analysis.

In essence, the Lindsay & Witt projections suggest a strong period of growth ahead for most destinations within the Pacific Asia region. With levels of almost +9 percent for this year and next, we expect to see a strong and sustained period of expansion, catapulting the region back as a serious contributor to worldwide tourism growth.

The projections for tourism revenues are equally positive with an average rate of growth for the countries covered well into double-digit figures for the next few years.

From a base of US$74.7 billion dollars during 1998, this growth would see the level of international tourism receipts rise to something in the vicinity of US$125 billion (in 1998 dollar terms) by the year 2004. While the countries of Northeast and Southeast Asia will capture the lion's share of that volume, those within South Asia and the South & Central Pacific will still do relatively well albeit off a much smaller base.
 

Some individual countries will also outperform the average rate of growth, particularly the Maldives, the Philippines, Hong Kong, China and Australia, each of which are expected to double (or come close to doubling) their level of receipts from international tourism between 1998 and the year 2004.

To see more however, you will need to purchase and study the report.

Obviously, forecasts are premised on certain assumptions, which these days have a tendency to change very rapidly Nonetheless when these projections are considered alongside those of Airbus Industries, Boeing and IATA, the same optimism becomes apparent. Given the regulatory and competitive pressures that exist at the moment, the potential for a strong expansion of the international travel sector in the Pacific Asia region is clearly very good.

For those readers who are planning to attend the PATA Annual Conference in Hong Kong, China later this month, you will have a chance to speak with both the authors and the publishers about these forecasts and to see and purchase the report in its entirety at the PATA publications stand.

If you are unable to attend, but who would like more information about the content and availability of the report, drop us a line at the Strategic Information Centre (SIC) in Bangkok at [email protected].